Six Moon Dance (17 page)

Outwardly, currently, she was a woman reformed, settled down among her Haggers to the enjoyments afforded by the Mantelby estate, of which there were many. She was secretive, however, about many things: her pastimes, her pleasures, the odd, bulky shipments she received now and then from someone living near Nehbe. Inwardly, always, she was still the follower of Morrigan, Monstrous Marool.

E
arly on in House Genevois, Mouche had made two good friends, a dark, wiry and slightly older boy named Fentrys and a ruddy-haired, brown-skinned lad of his own age named Tyle who came up into the suites about the time Mouche himself did. Simon had housed the three of them close together in the suites, for he believed in friendship and solidarity and the three boys were alike in being rather bookish, a trait sneered at by many Hunks, though Madame encouraged the trait among those with a taste for it, finding it a saleable characteristic among her more discriminating customers. When a patroness grew weary of bedsports, she might enjoy a good book read in a wellschooled voice. And when, eventually, a patroness outlived bedsports, she had not necessarily outlived her enjoyment of a good show, a good fencing display, a good song, or a good tale.

The boys studied together. They found, as had generations before them, that the Amatory Arts practice classes were more interesting than the theory lectures. In order to minimize study time, they divided the material into thirds, with each of them being responsible for part of it, feeling that if they volunteered often enough, they wouldn’t be called upon.

Today they waited, poised, as Madame said:

“Our job, in essence, is to make married women contented and happy. On other planets, married women, whether matched through arrangement or romance, usually rank lowest in contentment among gender and marital groups. Who can give me the reason for this?”

This was in Mouche’s third of the reading material, and he raised his hand to receive her nod.

“Madame, married men are most content, for they are cared for by their wives. If a woman is unmarried, she is contented to care for herself. Some unmarried men maybe don’t care for themselves that easily, but they have no other responsibilities. But a married woman usually has to care for her husband, her children, and her household, even if she has other work, and usually she receives little care in return. So, she is least contented of all.”

“You are speaking historically?”

“Oh, yes, Ma’am. Historically.” He bit his lip. As Madame said, it was necessary to keep in mind that what
had
been done was not necessarily what
should
be done.

“Here on Newholme, love is not considered a requisite of marriage,” Madame continued. “If the couple is fortunate, their sexual encounters will be not unpleasant, and if they are not fortunate in that regard, at least the unpleasantness will be infrequent and brief. We have medications that assist women in tolerating it.

“But as Mouche has said, women have many duties, some of which are painful, all of which are arduous, many of which are thankless. In consideration of this, the Hags have decreed that women are entitled to compensatory joys. Having done their duty to the family, they are entitled to the rewards of sensuality and romance, which is, of course, why you gentlemen are here.

“Tyle, discuss primary sensuality.”

Tyle was busy taking notes. He wrote down, “Tyle, discuss,” before he thought, then looked up flushing, to find half the class sniggering at him.

“Ah, Madame, well, ah, women respond to the sensuality they remember as babies or children. When a baby is tended it is cuddled and sung to and fed, and talked to …”

“Endlessly,” said Madame, severely. “Endlessly communicated with, if only in baby talk. There is playfulness in this and an innocent sensuality. Women who were well treated as infants remember the feeling of this warmth and acceptance, if only subconsciously. They like being sensuously cuddled and affectionately talked to. They like being given sweets or wine and playfully admired for their own accomplishments, even if these are minimal. Now, why do men not see this?

“Mouche?” she said, turning suddenly to give him a wicked look. “Why do men not see this?”

He flushed, scrambling through his memory of last night’s reading. “Oh, Madame, the book says … ah, it says …” He stared at the ceiling for inspiration.

Tyle spoke up, “Men get ranked by their peers on the battleground, in business, or in games, where nobody gets cuddled and you have to be almost… heroic to be noticed at all.”

Mouche grimaced and offered, “We know this is true, just from fencing class. You have to be very, very good before the master says anything except, ‘Next boy.’ “

“Correct,” said Madame, with an admonitory look at Mouche. “Men are taught to dismiss the need for babying as mere ‘female stuff,’ that is, foolishness, but this nurturing does not seem foolish to women. Women are hungry for affectionate words and that’s why we have conversation mistresses: to teach you to use them! Your colleague or brother may accept your striking him forcefully and addressing him as ‘You old mismothered bastard.’ Your patroness will not do so.

“We do other things similarly. We teach you to dance in ways that make your patroness feel skilled and graceful. We teach you to stack a deck of cards so your patroness will win the game if at that moment she needs to win a game. Simon or Jeremy are skilled cheats, and they will teach you how to do it.

“Now, in order to make a woman contented, we must be alert to the stories she creates about her own feelings. It is important for you to recognize when your patroness is inventing.

“Let us suppose that on some other world a young woman falls ‘in love’ with an utterly unsuitable young man. Describe an unsuitable young man, Battel.”

Bartel scratched his forehead with his pen, leaving a smear of ink at the top of his nose. “Well, Ma’am, he’d be lazy. He’d be … unkind. He’d be … I suppose he could be dirty. Or ugly….”

“She wouldn’t fall in love with him if he was ugly,” objected Tyle.

“Well, then not ugly,” conceded Barton.

“On the contrary, Tyle, he could be ugly,” said Madame. “And he could be lazy and abusive as well. The woman still might fall in love with him. Why? Anyone?”

Fentrys said, “Because her hormones are pushing her toward mating, he has a dangerous look, and he is spreading pheromones all over the place.”

“Quite true,” agreed Madame. “Now, she cannot say to her friends or parents that her body is sexually receptive and that this man looks dangerous and smells virile. Can she? What would her family say?”

Fentrys laughed. “They’d say he was ugly and lazy and abusive.”

“And the woman actually knows that,” said Madame. “She may refuse to admit it, but she knows that. What she doesn’t know is why she is responding to him. She does not know that she is being led by evolution and her nose. Though she can see his inadequacies with her mind, her body wants him nonetheless, so she has to justify herself. What does she do?”

“She makes up a story,” said Mouche, suddenly enlightened.

“Indeed. All unconscious of what is going on, she makes up a story. What does she say?”

Interested, Fentrys said, “She could say he has good things about him that nobody sees. Some women are very tenderhearted, so she could say he needs her….”

Tyle offered, “She could say he would change after they got married. I heard my aunt say that about a man who offered for my cousin.”

“Indeed,” said Madame. “And after they are married, he abuses her, and what does she say?”

Mouche said, “She says, ‘He broke my arm, but he really loves me.’ “

“She wouldn’t!” said a voice from the back of the room. “Women aren’t crazy.”

“Quite true,” said Madame. “They aren’t crazy, but they are sometimes quite helpless in dealing with their biology. Our theoretical woman might say just what Mouche proposes. Or, she might say, ‘He’s under a strain, and he goes all to pieces, and it was my fault, I upset him.’ An interesting fact about such stories is that repeating them actually calms the mind and assuages the pain of abuse by eliciting the release of serotonins and endorphins. Such stories are a kind of self-hypnosis, a verbal veil over reality. In this example, the woman assigns the man the role of one helpless in his affliction and assigns herself the role of nurturing mother-martyr, using the verbal veil as her device for surviving in that role.”

“She wouldn’t do that here on Newholme,” said Fentrys. “My mother wouldn’t do that!”

“Women don’t need to do that on Newholme,” Madame agreed. “On this world, any woman who did do such a thing would be referred to the psych machines for rebalancing! Here, physical abuse of women took place only at the time of the women raids and the Hags put a stop to that! We do, however, hear women say things like, ‘My father really treasured me. He didn’t want to let me go….’ Or, ‘My married daughter would come visit me with the children if she could get away from home.’ What are these?”

Tyle said, “They’d be the same kind of veils. To hide her disappointment?”

“Exactly. Admitting the fiction would be destructive to the woman’s ego, so she uses a verbal veil to conceal disappointment. Why do we care? Why do we talk about it? Because as Consorts, you will hear these stories as symptoms of need! Your patroness should be without disappointments if you are doing your job correctly. When you hear your patroness lying to herself, your job is to eliminate her need to do so.”

“We tell her she’s being silly,” said the voice from the rear of the room.

“You will not,” snapped Madame. “That is a traditionally male response which is totally unhelpful! You won’t say she is silly or that the situation she describes is not true or that she should forget it. You will say, ‘Yes, I know what you mean. I understand. I know of a similar case,’ and you will go on to tell a parallel story, which will allow her to feel that her own disappointments are universally shared, that she is not exceptional in this regard, that she need not worry over them….

“Fentrys? You look confused.”

“I am confused, Madame. Our patronesses are supposed to be exceptional, so why …”

“Your patronesses are supposed to be exceptional in all
favorable
regards. You will let them know they are exceptionally witty, exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally charming, patient, and so forth, and you will tell them so at least hourly. But if your patroness is troubled, if she thinks ‘Why me?’ the ‘Why me?’ must be turned into ‘It’s not just me.’ It’s normal for husbands to be preoccupied with business, for children to be thoughtless, for familial relationships to be unfulfilling. That is exactly why you are there, to make up for such things. If such disappointments weren’t normal, Consorts wouldn’t be needed. You’ll know you have succeeded when your patroness does not lie to herself anymore, when, instead of coping with sadness, she turns to you for her entitlements.”

T
hough Mouche grew accustomed to his new suite and his new status, the pictures in the hallway continued to disturb him. It was only after some months had passed that he realized he was worrying about his own eventual patroness, something he hadn’t even thought about until the most recent Amatory Arts lectures. The time of graduation had seemed remote, and he had never once visualized himself as actually fulfilling the necessary role, but now he thought of Her, the Patroness, someone sad, maybe. Someone needing care. Or, he found himself thinking almost obsessively, someone like … someone in one of those pictures.

There were stories about Hunks who had been required to do things so evil and depraved they had gone mad. There were tales about Wilderneers, Hunks who had killed their owners and escaped after swearing revenge against all females. Little girls were frightened with this tale beside the fire of an evening. “They’ll come in the night,” the story-spinner would say. “Tapping at your window. Their eyes are red with blood, and their teeth are sharp….”

The suddenly perceived reality of his future made him self-conscious. In the privacy of his own suite that night, Mouche stripped down, set candles either side of the cheval glass, and tilted the mirror to give himself a slow looking over. His skin was very white and smooth, due to all the bathing and oiling and massage. His ashen hair was not yet as long as Madame wanted it, but it was a good deal longer than when he came, the silver-gold mass artfully curled up and away from his brow, which was wide and unlined and interrupted only by the wings of his dark brows, plucked into full but graceful arcs. His nails were smooth and polished, his teeth likewise. The health machines brought by the settlers had seen to that.

Since Mouche was only thirteen, the hairdresser, manicurist and facialist worked on him only once in a tenday. Later, it would be every day or so. Light hair and dark eyes, said Madame, were a dramatic combination. Mouche’s eyes were malachite green, fringed with heavy dark lashes. His mouth was wide, the upper lip somewhat narrow, the lower more full. Even now, his jaw was round enough to denote strength. He would not have to keep a full beard, as some Hunks did, in order to look properly romantic.

As for his body, it wasn’t much as yet. Lean and muscular, of course, with all the training he was getting, but he had little bulk. His shoulders were broader than when he came, and his legs straighter and more comely. He turned, looking at his back view from over his shoulder. Women were attracted by butts, as men were to breasts, so butts were important. The ideal butt was small, neat, round, and smooth. His wasn’t bad. Nothing would be done to his sex, if at all, until he was sold.

Every Consort was sterilized as soon as he was sold, for the one thing absolutely taboo to Consorts was the fathering of children. Extravagant dowries assured that children would be of a man’s own name, his own line. Every Family Man had a right to expect his own unique line, his own genetic makeup, his own descendants. Elder son to elder son to elder son, the lineage honored and remembered, his own name honored and remembered. The g’name was the important thing. There could be no doubt about who fathered whom.