The Ticking Time-Bomb
Peony D. Beckside
Thanks to Vyeh for
putting the idea forward and for giving me the inspiration to write this story.
It sits there, on the coffee-table in my sitting room. It has the menace of a hand-grenade with the pin pulled out. Not for what it is, but for what it represents. It is a simple envelope, plain, no name, no address, no postage stamp, no postmark.
It wasn’t there when I left for work this morning. It wasn’t hastily shoved through my
letterbox. It’s been deliberately placed
in the one place where I can’t ignore it.
‘They’, whoever ‘they’ are, are making the point that they can get into
my flat whenever they want. I am the only one with a key! I’m not convinced that calling a locksmith to
change the locks would help.
I’m pretty sure that I know who ‘they’ are, or at least in
general terms; and that ‘they’ are cruelly teasing me, playing ‘cat & mouse’
with me. Whilst I’ve been suspecting
that I am being watched, assessed, this invasion of my home, my sanctum, is
confirmation that ‘they’ have taken an
interest in me. Have I already been put
on an acquisition list, or are ‘they’ still deciding if I should be. Either way the chances of me suffering the
same fate as my friend Teresa have just increased exponentially.
I have little confidence that if this is so, I can avoid that
fate. What can I do? Run away to some ‘banana-republic’ that’s not
got an extradition treaty with my government?
Go to the Police? These people are the kind that are very well
organised, international, I suspect. I
doubt there’s anywhere on Earth where they wouldn’t find me. Besides, living in a banana-republic might be
worse than what Teresa is suffering. As
for the Police, these are the kind of people who ‘own’ the Police, through
bribery, corruption and patronage. I
feel the ‘net’ closing round me, that it’s only a question of when I too am ‘taken’. Is it to be this evening? Rather pointlessly I suppose, I check each
room of the flat in case they are already waiting for me. But if they were, surely they’d have grabbed
me already. What then would be the point
of the envelope on the table?
I reach for the envelope and extract the sheet of paper from
it. Unfolding the message my heart
lurches, pounding like a kettle-drum. My
breath becomes a pant. I know who this
missive is from! I recognise the
handwriting. It’s from Teresa! Yet she’s been missing, believed captured,
transported to the planet Gor; a place I’d only ever believed fictional until
very recently. The message confirms what
I feared for her, that she’s become a kajira, a slave-girl.
The handwriting is genuine.
I recognise it. It is consistent
so is unlikely to be a forgery. But why
would anyone want to forge such a message?
I read with mounting horror and sadness Teresa’s contrition
and apology to me. I cannot stop myself
bursting into tears, sobbing like there’s no tomorrow. I can no more resent her attitude to me when
I’d tried to warn her of her danger: She
didn’t know, To her, my story can only,
and according to this message had been taken as proof of my paranoia and
delusion: Even though it was real it not being seen in the slightest way
credible. As her friend and given the
shock and disillusionment she must have suffered, there is nothing for me to
forgive. If the situation had been
reversed, I would probably have behaved no differently than Teresa.
I need a drink!
Tonight’s planned meal temporarily forgotten. There’s a bottle of brandy in one of the
cupboards. I get a good slug-full and
settle down to dissect Teresa’s words, pick as much information and innuendo as
possible out of her missive.
I smile ruefully at her comment:
“I would not wish a Gorean slavery on Marcie. They are trying to turn us all into the most
lascivious and abjectly subservient sluts, and I fear they are succeeding in my
case. No Marcie is too classy, too
sophisticated for this life. I had
thought myself to be the same, but in my secret hidden heart I fear that I am
that Jezebel, that tart, that floozy; this training is bringing just such
traits out in me whether I want them to be exposed or not.”
I wonder if that’s true.
I too had thought Teresa ‘too classy’ to surrender to the lasciviousness
she talks of, but in the kind of environment she talks of, can anyone hold out
against the pressures to be what the slavers want and expect? Would I?
Will I, when they come and take me?
It’d be a bit like ‘Stockholm Syndrome’[1], wouldn’t
it? Women, in the face of total
powerlessness adapt. We become what we
need to be to survive. If that means
surrender to what Teresa calls her ‘secret hidden heart’ then can we, should
we, be contemptuous? Many women would be
so sneering until they find themselves in a similar position, and I would too
until Teresa had shown me that awful ‘K’ shop and I’d realised that so many of
my assumptions were incorrect. The
veneer of civilisation is very thin! Men
perhaps might fight, adaption being harder for them. Their childhood conditioning being different
to that of women.
No, when they do come for me, I cannot lie to myself. My ‘secret hidden heart’ is not that strong
and classy as Teresa believes. I put up
a good ‘front’, but in the nighttime fantasies of my dreams, the prospect of
some big powerful hunk taking me and enslaving me does ‘chime’. The modern feminist overlay to our Western
society masks, but does not destroy what may very well be written into the
genes of womankind; that we are by nature essentially submissive. I may be no more immune to the ‘delights’ and
necessities of lascivious slavery. The
practicalities sound just brutal, but is that merely and necessarily part of
the adjustment procedure?
“Bob? It’s Marcie
here. How are you holding up in the face
of Teresa’s disappearance?”
“OK, I guess! I
miss her terribly, but the almost physical pain has just about gone now.”
I’m not sure that I should show Bob, Teresa’s boyfriend, her
message. It might tear at barely healed
emotional wounds, but to not do so would be unconscionable.
“Can you come and see me tomorrow evening? I’ve got something to show you.”
“Why, have you heard from Teresa?”
“Sort of, but don’t hold out your hopes of ever seeing
her again, and don’t assume that she or I are paranoid,”
“You have me intrigued now! I’ll see you there. 7PM?”
“Ideal. See you
then.”
I make a quick meal and settle down to write my own
reminiscences of that fateful day Teresa and I spent at the shopping Mall, so
as to give Bob the context for the comments in Teresa’s message. I write it in the sense of ‘now’ rather than
it having happened in the past. I find
it more immediate somehow.
I’ve just had a thought!
Whilst it’s most likely that the message has come through the channels
of the Kur slavers, the ones that took Teresa, what about the other ‘team’? The Kur slavers have the motive of using the
message as I have taken it to be, as them ‘playing with their prey’, me. What
if it were the Priest-Kings and their agents who transmitted Teresa’s
message? Why would they do that? What would be their purpose? They are not noted for interfering in the
affairs of humans without an important reason.
To them we are classed as barely sentient. What would it benefit them for either Bob or
myself to receive Teresa’s message. Can
I, dare I, hope that the Priest-King faction can save me from myself being
enslaved? No. Do not hope, Marcie. Work on a worst case situation and anything
less than that is a bonus. Hope will
almost certainly lead to greater disappointment.
I also consider the possibility that Teresa’s message is some
kind of hoax, an elaborate joke if you wish.
I reject that option as soon as I think of it. The same question applies, ‘why?’ Neither Teresa nor Bob are pranksters, and if
it were a joke, Teresa would have to hide herself away for a considerable and
indefinite amount of time. No. Can’t believe that.
“Come in Bob. Sit
yourself down,”
I indicate the couch.
I don’t ask. I put a class
containing a generous level of brandy in front of him.
“So Marcie, what is it that you’ve heard? What news?”
I hand Bob my note,
“Read this first.
You need to understand the context.
Please don’t assume that Teresa and I have both ‘lost our minds’.”
He reads a while. His
face darkening.
“Are you trying to tell me that you believe that the
planet Gor exists, that all those stories are real? That you fear Teresa’s been taken there as a
kajira.”
Something in the tone of his voice seems to indicate that the
word ‘kajira’ is not unknown to him, and not just from a brief mention in my
report.
“I didn’t then. I
do now.”
“I’m not sure that I do yet.”
“But you know something of the planet Gor? That you’ve read some of these supposedly
fictitious works about the place?”
“Yes, quite a large number of them when I was much
younger. I’ve not had any of the books
for years though.”
“A pity. I wish
that Teresa’d read at least one of them.
Perhaps she wouldn’t now be lost.”
“So do you have anything more to indicate that what you
believe has happened to Teresa, has happened?”
I hand him Teresa’s message.
“You recognise Teresa’s handwriting? I do. It’s hers alright!”
Bob goes grey as he reads further down the document.
“Good God! If this
is for real… Oh, the poor girl!”
I look him in the eye.
There are tears in his! Bob’s not
one to normally show emotion. He’s
really feeling for Teresa.
“Tell me how you got this…”
I recount the details of how it came into my possession.
“What can we do, Marcie?”
“Nothing, Bob. I
fear there’s nothing we can do. Even if
we were to find out who’s behind taking her away, there’s no leverage we can
apply to them to have them bring her back. Even if she came back, she’d no
longer be the woman you know. She’ll be
changed.”
“What about this shop you talk about…”
“No, Bob, don’t.
Direct action never solves anything.
It simply provokes reaction, which sometimes can be disproportionate to
the action. These are the kind of people
who would not hesitate to murder you; and I might not be around to come to your
funeral. There’s a job I want you to do,
and you can’t do it if you’re dead.”
“What do you mean?
What job?”
“I have strong reasons for thinking that I too have been
targetted, that I too may follow Teresa to Gor, as a slave-girl. If that happens, if I simply disappear, I
want you to tidy my affairs up. If you
agree, tomorrow I’m going to a solicitor[2] to draw up
papers allowing you access to my bank accounts and other assets without the
necessity of a Death Certificate. Normally with a missing-person, you have to
wait seven years. I’m hoping to reduce
that to one month. Will you do this, if
and when necessary?”
“What about your Gus?
Shouldn’t he do this?”
“No, I think a lot of him, but I feel you are more
money-savvy.”
I pause
“I think you’d better keep my story and Teresa’s
message. I don’t want you to show them
to Gus until I disappear, in the hopeful case I don’t.”
“There must be something we can do! Can’t we go to the Police?”
“What, and have them lock both of us up forever as
paranoid delusional nutcases? Besides it
wouldn’t surprise me if the people who took Teresa and will probably take me,
aren’t being protected by the Police.
You know as well as I, that ‘little people’ like you and I are
nothing. The more money you have the
more the justice system protects you.
These people are doubtless very rich…
It would be very tempting for you to ‘fly off the handle’ and do
something stupid. That’s the surest way
to get yourself, and perhaps Gus, killed”
“Is there really nothing…”
“Yes, there is.
Remember Teresa, and me, with fondness, tidy up my affairs when I’m
gone. Support Gus, because he’s going to be feeling what you are. Move on, both of you find new girlfriends and
protect them as best you can from the fate of Teresa and myself.”
I pause.
“Teresa and I will survive, as lascivious slave-sluts
perhaps. It’s just a pity that we can’t
be so for you and for Gus!”
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