John Norman Page 7

“She does not use cosmetics,” said William.

  “Tomorrow night,” said Gunther to Hamilton, “adorn yourself.”

  He then turned away, and left the room. “Do not lock the door,” said William. “I am coming with you, presently.”

  Hamilton leaped to her feet, angrily.

  “You obey him very well, Doctor Hamilton,” said William.

  She blushed.

  “Adorn yourself!” she mocked.

  “I would do so, if I were you,” said William.

  “I do not like this dress!” said Hamilton.

  “Then remove it,” said William.

  Brenda Hamilton’s hand lashed forth to strike William, but he caught her wrist, easily. She struggled to free it, and could not.

  He forced her, she resisting, again to her knees.

  “One thing you must learn, Doctor Hamilton,” said William, “before you think of striking with impunity, is that men may not choose to permit it. Further, such a blow might have consequences. You might be beaten, and perhaps severely.” He looked down at her. “It is important that you understand, Doctor Hamilton,” he said, “that men are stronger than you.”

  At his feet Brenda Hamilton, for the first time in her life, understood truly what this might mean, that men were stronger than women.

  “You are angry with me,” she said, “William.”

  He looked down on her, furious.

  Unable to meet his eyes, she put her bead down.

  Then he turned away, and left the room.

  She looked up, at the door. She knelt on the planks of the room. She heard the two hasps being flung against the staple plates, angrily. She heard two heavy padlocks, one after the other, thrust through their staples, and snapped shut.

  She leaped up, and ran to the door. She put her fingernails to its crack, futilely.

  She turned away from the door, and looked back into the room.

  She saw the cardboard box, lying near the cot on the floor. She saw her reflection, red-eyed, across the room.

  Slowly she went to the box and knelt beside it, taking a brush and comb from it and, with the brush, slowly, watching herself in the mirror, began to brush her long, dark hair.

  The work in the experimental shack was apparently not going as well as it might.

  The days passed slowly for Brenda Hamilton. In the morning, with a broom, she swept her quarters, and, when she had finished sweeping, with a cloth, dampened with water, on her hands and knees, she mopped the boards of her floor. Similarly, once a day, she wiped down the walls of her cell, using the cane chairs, to the ceiling of corrugated tin. There was little point in this. It was merely Gunther accustoming her to servile work. Also, he insisted that the cot be placed at a certain place and angle in the room, aligned with certain floor boards, and that the mattress be straight upon it. Doctor Hamilton was being taught discipline. She was being taught, too, to comply perfectly with the arbitrary will of a male. But such work was finished by ten in the morning, when the heat of the day was beginning, and there was then little to do in the hot, stifling room, now her cell, and she spent much time on the cot, lying upon it, staring at the wall or ceiling. She was fed small meals, four times a day, the last at nine P.M. She had more water than she needed. The diet was high protein, with few fats or starches. William, she knew, was in charge of her diet. The meals, and water, and such, were brought now by blacks, those whom Herjellsen used to guard the compound and perform its duties. There were two of them. As Gunther had told her, when they were in the room, she knelt. The first day one of them had pointed at the wall opposite the door. Understanding, she had risen and gone to the wall and knelt there, across the room from him, away from the door. There seemed little point in this there were always two of them, one who would bring the food, or whatever it might be, and the other who would stand by the door, watching, just outside. She could not run to the door and escape. After the first time she did not have to be again instructed but, when one of them entered the room, she would kneel across the room, unbidden, away from the door. In the afternoon, she would wash her body and her single garment, using a chipped wooden bowl, and a piece of toweling, supplied by William, and water from the drinking bucket. Each night, after her supper, as Gunther had commanded, she adorned herself. At first she was clumsy, but she was highly intelligent, and her small hands were sure. She taught herself to apply lipstick, which she had not worn since high school, and to apply powder and eye shadow. It seemed very barbaric, somehow, for her to do so, so primitive, this adorning of the body. Did it truly make her more beautiful, she wondered, or was it only a device to attract attention, to signal her sexuality, to proclaim her femaleness, to announce her eagerness for, her readiness for, her vulnerability to, male aggression. She shuddered. She removed two earrings from the cardboard box. They were golden pendants, with clips. She fastened them on her ears. Her ears had never been pierced. Doctor Brenda Hamilton would leave scorned that very idea, so primitive, like an aboriginal sex rite. She regarded herself in the mirror. Yes, they were beautiful. She was beautiful. She regretted suddenly that she bad never had her ears pierced. How exciting, she thought, the symbolism, the flesh meaning of such an adornment, the piercing of her softness by the hardness of the metal, the literal wearing of such an ornament, its beads or rings or pendant against the side of her throat, beneath the dark hair, their being fastened on her. I am beautiful, she thought. Kneeling before the mirror, she reached again into the box. In a moment she had opened a small vial, and touched herself, twice, with perfume. She lifted her hair and regarded herself. You are an exquisitely beautiful woman, she told herself. She regretted never having had her ears pierced.

  She leaped to her feet and walked about the room, looking at herself in the mirror.

  How beautifully she moved! And she found she could move even more beautifully if she wished. She noticed that she was graceful, and beautifully curved. She understood then, as she had not before, how beautiful a human female can be. For a brief instant she was not displeased to be such a creature, but felt an indescribable thrill of joy, of pride, that it was what she was, that that was she, so soft, so delicious, so alive, so vital, so marvelously beautiful. For an instant Doctor Brenda Hamilton was pleased that she was a female. Then as she looked at the softness, the beauty, the delicacy of herself, she was angry, frustrated, furious. Tears came to her eyes. It was so soft, so vulnerable, her beauty! She thought then of men, so hard, so large, so strong, so different and sometimes fierce, so different, so different from her. She wondered of the meaning of her beauty, its softness, its vulnerability. Perhaps, she wondered, it belongs to men. “No!” she cried. “No!” And then she hated the beautiful, soft, thing she saw in the mirror. “No!” she cried, looking into the mirror. “No!” She would have torn away the earrings, washed away the lipstick and cosmetics, the perfume, but she did not dare, for Gunther had commanded her to wear them and she was afraid to disobey him.

  But Gunther had not come the first night. He had been working in the experimental shack with Herjellsen.

  When the door had opened, it had been William. Brenda was kneeling before the cot, as she had planned, the striped mattress to be seen behind her, transecting, at its angle, her body.

  William had stopped, stunned.

  Disappointment had been visible, though only for an instant, in Brenda Hamilton’s eyes. William had noted it, with brief irritation.

  “Stand up,” had said William.

  Brenda had stood up, and she, unconsciously, smoothed down the thin cotton dress. The movement, as she realized instantly, had accentuated her beauty, drawing the dress momentarily tight over the softness of her breasts. She flushed.

  They stood apart from one another, regarding one another. Brenda Hamilton was timid, inspected. Then she saw genuine awe in William’s eyes. She smiled.

  “You are beautiful, Brenda,” he said. He did not address her as Doctor Hamilton. That would, in the moment, have seemed foolish.

  He was a male, c
onfronting a beautiful female prisoner. That was all. One would not address such a prisoner by such a title.

  “Hello, William,” whispered Brenda Hamilton.

  “Stand straight,” said William.

  He walked about her, viewing her. He stopped behind her, some seven feet away, on the other side of the cot. She did not turn to face him.

  “Yes,” he said, “you are a truly beautiful woman.”

  She lifted her head, not turning.

  He ranged about her and stood again in front of her. “Truly beautiful,” he said.

  “Thank you, William,” said Brenda Hamilton. It was the first time in her life that such a thing had been said to her. It was the first time she had acknowledged such a compliment. Deep within her there glowed a sudden, diffused warmth. Startled, she felt, within her, which she would not have admitted, a surge of pleasure.

  A man had inspected her, candidly, as she had stood well displayed before him, as she had stood as a mere prisoner, and had termed her, objectively, with nothing to gain which he could not have taken by his strength, beautiful. Brenda Hamilton, the prisoner, knew then that she was pleasing to a man.

  This filled her, for no reason she clearly understood, with incredible pride.

  She had stood well revealed, captive, before a man, and had been pronounced beautiful. But suddenly she felt very helpless, very vulnerable.

  To her terror she saw William’s hand reach out and touch her shoulder.

  “No!” she hissed. She backed away. “Don’t touch met” she cried.

  William looked at her with fury. He did not advance toward her.

  “I have come to tell you,” he said, “that we are encountering difficulties in completing the second series of experiments. There will be some delay.”

  “I demand to speak to Herjellsen!” said Brenda Hamilton.

  But the door had shut.

  She heard the hasps strike the staple plates, the locking of the heavy padlocks.

  Brenda turned away, agonized. She had wanted William to stay. He seemed the only link with the outside. Herjellsen had not so much as seen her since she had left in the Land Rover with William and Gunther. Gunther had not visited her since her first night in captivity. There had been only the blacks and, from time to time, William.

  Brenda Hamilton regarded herself in the mirror, in the light of the single light bulb under the tin roof.

  Tonight, she knew, she had attracted a man. She lay down on the cot, twisting in the heat, unable to sleep. She got up and walked about the room. She drank water. She desperately wanted a cigarette, but William would not allow her any. “Tobacco must not be smelled on your breath,” he had told her. “A keenly sensed organism can detect such an odor, even days afterward.”

  Brenda Hamilton had understood nothing of this. But she had not been given tobacco.

  Fitfully, in the heat, she slept.

  Once she awakened, startled. She had dreamed that Gunther had taken her in his arms, as she was, as she had been when William had seen her, and forced her back on the cot, his hands thrusting up the thin dress, over her breasts, freeing her arms of it, until it was about her neck and that he had then, with one hand, twisted it, sometimes loosening it, sometimes tightening it, controlling her by it, making her do what he wished, while his other hand had forced her to undergo delights of which she had not dreamed. How she had writhed and struggled to kiss him as he had then, when her body uncontrollably begged for him, deigned to enter her. But then she screamed and awakened, the light of a flashlight in her eyes.

  “Go to sleep,” said a voice from the window, on the other side of the bars, the netting. It was one of the blacks, making his rounds, checking the prisoner.

  She lay terrified on the cot.

  She lay awake. She waited. In what she surmised might be an hour, the flashlight again illuminated her body on the cot. She pretended she was asleep.

  When it was gone, she groaned. She had not dreamed they would be so thorough.

  Then she understood, too, the order of entries into her room, during the day, their timing, when the broom was given to her, the water, the wastes emptied, the food brought, the late checking.

  She was under almost constant surveillance.

  She had no tool. She was helpless in the room. She could not pick the lock for the locks were on the outside. She did not even have a fork, or spoon. With her fingernails and teeth she could not splinter through the floor, nor dig through the wall.

  And, even should she gain the outside, there were the blacks, at least one on guard, and the fence.

  And outside the fence there was the bush, the heat, the lack of water, the dryness, animals, the distance.

  Gunther, she knew, was a superb hunter. Tracks, in the sand and dirt, soft, powdery, dry, would leave a trail which she supposed even she, a woman, might follow.

  She lay on the cot looking up at the dark ceiling. I would leave a trail, she told herself, that even I could follow, even a woman.

  She feared Gunther.

  Then she noted that she had thought of herself not simply as Doctor Hamilton, but as a woman. No, no, she wept to herself. I do not wish to be a woman. I will not be a woman! I will not be a woman!

  She twisted desirably, deliciously, in the brief dress, and thought of Gunther.

  Suddenly she said to herself, startling herself, I want to be a woman!

  Yes, I want to be a womanl

  I am a woman!

  No, she cried, I will not be a woman! Never!

  She realized, though she could not understand the motivations, that it was no accident that she had been dressed as she had, that there had been a mirror placed in the room so that she would be forced to see herself so clad, that she had been ordered to adorn herself with cosmetics, and, indeed, most brutally, most unfairly of all, that she had been forced to kneel in the presence of males, and could not rise until their permission had been given.

  “I hate them!” she cried. “I hate men! I hate all of them! I do not want to be a woman! I will never be a woman! Never!”

  But a voice within her seemed to say, be quiet, little fool, little female.

  She rolled on her stomach and wept, and pounded the mattress. Suddenly she realized she had not removed the earrings, the makeup. She removed them, and, too, from her body, washed the perfume. Then she lay again on the cot. She was almost frightened to go to sleep. There was no sheet, no cover. She knew the blacks would, from time to time, during the night, check with the flashlight. Then she laughed to herself. “I am only a prisoner,” she said, “what do I care if they see my legs?” It seemed to her somehow amusing that a prisoner might attempt to conceal her legs from her jailers. Every inch of her, she knew, was at their disposal, if they so much as wished.

  She lay on her stomach on the cot, on the striped mattress, her head turned to one side. The mattress, she sensed, was wet with her tears. Her fists, beside her head, on each side, were clenched.

  As she lay there, helpless, locked in the room, she knew that the men had won, that whatever might be their reasons, their plans or motivations, their intentions with respect to her, that they had conquered.

  She knew that it was a woman who lay on the striped mattress on the small iron cot, in the hot, tin-roofed building in a compound in Rhodesia.

  “I know that I am a female,” she said to herself. “I am a female.”

  In her heart, in her deepest nature, for the first time in her life, Doctor Brenda Hamilton-the prisoner Brenda-the woman-acknowledged her sex.

  She did not know for what reason the men had done what they had done, but she knew that they had accomplished at least one of their goals.

  They had forced her, cruelly and incontrovertibly, in the very roots of her being, to accept the truth of her reality, that she was a woman.

  Brenda wondered what might be their further goals.

  They had succeeded quite well in their first. They had taught her that she was a woman.

  Brenda no longer had do
ubt about this. She was tired. Brazenly she took what position she was comfortable with on the cot. She no longer cared about the blacks and their flashlights. She was a female prisoner. Her entire body, she knew, each curvacious, luscious inch of it should her jailers wish it, lay at their disposal. She stretched like a cat on the cot, in the heat, and. fell asleep. She was mildly scandalized, as she fell asleep, to discover that she was not displeased to be a woman, that she was quite satisfied with the luscious, curved, sexy body which was she.

  On the fourth night, at 10 P.M., Brenda Hamilton heard the keys turn in the padlocks outside the door, heard them lifted out of the staples and, on their short chains, fall against the door; then she heard the hasps flung back.

  The door opened.

  “Gunther,” she whispered.

  She fell to her knees, and looked up at him.

  This was the first time since the first night of her captivity that he had entered the room.

  She had adorned herself beautifully, even to the earrings and perfume.

  Kneeling on the wooden floor of her cell, in the thin, white dress, she looked up at him.

  It came high up her thighs.

  He did not tell her to rise. She remained kneeling. He looked at her, for a long time.

  It was the first time he had seen her adorned.

  It was a quite different Brenda Hamilton on whom he now looked, than on whom he had looked before. It was a Brenda Hamilton who was now a woman.

  “Hello. Gunther,” said Brenda Hamilton.

  He drew up one of the cane chairs, its back to her, and sat across it, facing her, looking at her. He did not. speak. After a time, Brenda whispered, “Do you like me as I am now, as you see me now?”

  He did not answer her. His face betrayed no emotion. He turned about. “Lock the door,” he said to someone outside, one of the blacks.

  It was shut and locked.

  He regarded her.

  “We are now alone,” he said. “We will not be disturbed.”

  “Yes, Gunther,” she whispered.

  Gunther regarded her. “You are now, without inhibition,” he said, “to do precisely what you wish.”