SIXTY-SIX

Reality’s Returning Grip

When Catherine enters the buffet room, the sun is shining in brightly, through windows mounted high up on the room’s double-height walls, and yet, it feels to her as if it is the middle of the night.

It is not that she is yawning, or that her eyes are closing of their own will and that she therefore feels a need to consider a return to the room of babbling in order to prevent sleep from sneaking up on her. It is the quiet of the room and the current let-up of weekend play that make it feel as if it is the dead of night.

Catherine is not the only true-submissive in the room: two others are eyeing the food tables as well, from a distance, as they converse. Tristan’s female immediately stops walking, choosing not to approach them, just in case.

Out on the table of her mind, the pained, flowing thoughts and stream-of-consciousness venting of the physically restrained non-refundables hemorrhaging profusely from their mind, remain. The overflow of thoughts and emotions from the women on the television panel linger as well. Catherine, however, does not look towards the table, succeeds in ignoring it, until her ears capture what one of the two true submissives in the buffet room is saying.

“There’s no one with less power than a street whore, and that’s why so many weak men out there go to them: to get the only sense of power that the world ever allows them to have. So, those men are most unlike our masters. If those men were to go to escorts or to whores higher up on the hierarchy, then they wouldn’t feel any power at all, because those women are different than the street variety: those women are organized and know exactly how they’re playing men. So, the men who go to them have to be stronger to begin with, if they’re to feel power. We have all varieties of non-refundables here, this weekend, but only one kind of man.”

Sounds like a normal conversation, that is, for women surrounded by non-refundables.

“A woman can be hit wherever, by a stranger, on the street, and, once her body is healed, she won’t be nearly as traumatized as if she was violated, because there’s a huge difference, since being violated involves so much more. So, the excuse that buying a woman for intimacy is just like buying any other service that a woman provides in society is bull, because other services involving other parts of the body are not the same at all,” the other true submissive replies to the former.

“But Pakaloon didn’t actually pay her, and the central argument to the case was the expectation of privacy, when someone is speaking to someone else in their own home. Some men were saying that the mistress should’ve been legally punished for releasing those voice recordings of him, and maybe people should indeed be allowed to say whatever they think, in their own home, without a chance of their nasty personality traits ever being leaked out to everyone. But then again, we tell kids all the time that it’s not ratting someone out, to tell adults about bullies, and so, how is it ratting someone out to tell the world who they really are? And if a public figure were saying hateful things about women in private, women would want to know.

What bothered men the most, and what they absolutely hated, was that a mistress had so much power over a man’s business affairs and precious money. And they hated that their own bad character could possibly be made public in the very same way, affecting their financial affairs, and costing them as well. In the end, if that man hadn’t had a mistress, he wouldn’t have lost his business.”

“And after that, how she was treated . . . How is it that stalking is illegal, but a man can hire a private investigator to follow a woman around? How does that make sense? What privacy there? It’s ridiculous. Only when there’s suspicion of the law being broken, or of something dangerous going on, should private investigators be legal, and what doesn’t concern the illegality or danger should not be reported to the client.”

“And plus, it can be because of an investigator that a man learns where a woman lives to begin with, or her routine, and then, he knows where she’ll be, to hurt her. Or worse.”

“And, of course, the one case in a thousand where the boyfriend, or husband, or ex isn’t the one who killed a woman, or isn’t responsible for a woman who’s missing, men say ‘see? It’s not always the man in a woman’s life, or an ex.’ Can’t like those odds.”

Silence.

“I get it, how the non-refundables can’t stand the silence. I can’t stand being at the cottage: all the quiet, all the time within myself, all the deadness all around me, as far as I’m concerned. I feel as if the world has ended and there are no people left, and I just feel so lonely and depressed, just buried there. And I’ve been like that since I was a kid. I’m a city person through and through. I feel more and more alive on the highway, the closer that we get to the heart of the city again, after we’ve been at the cottage.”

“Except that they have a lot in their head to rightfully drive them crazy, the whores.”

All normal. Has nothing to do with me. A case in the news. Non-refundables all around them.

The two true submissives have not noticed that a third of their breed has entered the room. They were allowed through the door out of the ballroom and into the corridor after Catherine was, but arrived in the buffet room first, since Catherine was held up. They wondered where she was, at first, since the attendant at the door mentioned her passage, but then shrugged off her absence when they did not see her. They have not approached the food tables, aware of the rules concerning submissives, nor have they spoken to any attendants in the room, since none have entered it since they did.

Although Catherine has eyed the tables of food as well, the one that concerns her the most at the moment, despite her hunger, is the one that she is relieved to be successfully staying away from, in her mind.

I’m not hallucinating.

You weren’t hallucinating in the coatroom either, healer replies.

Were you afraid that I’d blow the vault wide open when I . . .

What?

I don’t know, she replies, frowning.

What vault?

I . . . She stops again. It’s normal, that I’d be thinking so much about my street friends, this weekend, with all the non-refundables around, and what we’re doing. It’s normal that I’d feel close to the friends that I lost.

Okay, normal.

And it’s normal that women complain about men. And men even complain about women. More versus less.

“So what did you think of Pakaloon’s rant?” One of the two true then asks the other.

“I don’t know, but the reaction to it overall was dead on, in that case. But at other times, though, I think that certain word-labels are used just to shut up people, clumsy, unaware, uninformed people, but not always people who mean to be unkind or cruel. And almost everyone has called someone a name just to shut them up or to dismiss them, about something that’s disagreed upon. So, when someone’s called a name that’s ridiculous for them to be labelled with, it’s intimidation, because one has to be allowed to have one’s own mind, which means the right to question and discuss.”

And true submissives do? This is turning bad again, isn’t? No. Enough. My presence agitating the non-refundables while they’re all tied up and drugged, their erupting, that sizeable explosion from the lot of them, that all makes sense, but true submissives . . . I’m starting to wish that I felt tired again.

“Whenever someone says that someone doesn’t like them because of their race or sexual orientation -- unless it happens on the spot when people just meet -- I think that it’s a rather arrogant thing to say, because they’re in effect saying that no one could ever dislike them for their personality, for what they do, for how they behave in everyday life, for their work ethics, for their sense of fairness, for what that person actually knows about them. It’s easier and kinder to their ego and self-esteem not to take it personally, but there are bitches and asses across all races and orientation, of course, and everyone has people who like them, and people who don’t like them. People who get along with them, and people who don’t.”

The women on that television screen, they were speaking. It’s just . . . When did they stop speaking? But then, the words after they did were from women who came around in the middle of the night to speak to Malika and to the others, when they were in between clients. That composing that I did, it was probably to close the files on my friends. As if Tristan ever says ‘I’m sorry . . . ’ Well, if we were involved in that way, of course we’d end up in therapy . . .  What did he say, exactly, in his apology? Composing in thin air leaves it all in thin air that is then dispersed. I felt awful, though, didn’t I, after that composing?

Twice the dose of a stimulant undid the work of your own medicine, Catherine. Move on. It was drug-induced. Now allow reality to get a firm grip again, healer insists.

Medicine that I need for stability. I composed not in a woman’s usual way of putting parts of her life together to make them fit into a work that makes sense to her, but in a truly creative way, like artists do: starting with the real, and extrapolating, inventing, moving on from there. Right? An escape. And it wasn’t my story, what I heard, when I looked into those women’s eyes. But . . . I’m not supposed to be creating. I . . . She yawns. I’m tired again, she realizes. Is that a good sign? Does it mean that the stimulant is releasing me? I . . . What if it really was the women’s words in the coatroom that were keeping me awake? They were easy targets for my bad luck, weren’t they? The men are still attracted to be near me, but in an orderly fashion.

Would your ego be bruised, if they weren’t at all attracted? Healer perhaps jests.

Not funny. You know that I want them to stay away. You know that I would be so happy if my bad luck stopped affecting other people. I . . . I had to take a double dose, because I so wanted to sleep, and I’m certain that I would’ve fallen asleep, and that I would’ve ruined all of Tristan’s art and designs on me, then, because I would’ve fallen to the floor and scraped and destroyed all of his work. You’ve . . . For a year, you’ve warned me and you’ve told me to protect myself from him. But this weekend,  you told me to submit to him, and that’s  just not . . .

Silence.

Is it because you know something more? Have you learned something new? Or . . . Or did you figure out something new? She asks.

Silence.

Tristan warned me not to take more than one pill, and I did anyway, which is not like me, because I fear . . .

Dying, healer finishes for her.

What did he say, in that apology? She once again tries to recall.

Let it go.

You wanted me out of the coatroom because you feared my composing. Now you’re calm again.

Let it go.

I feared madness, earlier on, but taking one of my pills allowed me to be in control of myself again, after I skipped a dose. If one stops fearing madness, is it that one has gone mad?  Because, shouldn’t I be fearing it more, now, after . . .

Odd, that you composed. Now let it go. Just move forward, healer cuts in. You can’t stay stuck in a loop. It’s always the same words.

It’s like something in my head opened up, and opened up something in the women, and then . . .

What?

And the receptor in my head then heard it all, and so, no lips moving . . .

Are you still composing? Catherine, you can’t lose your mind, healer replies, most firmly now. Snap out of it, he warns her. Just stop explaining away, and do regain your center, regain even.

Oh, so now I’m not to submit? Even, she then agrees, faintly. But I do remember that his words, in that apology, scared me. I remember the emotion, the fear. Were you upset?

Of course not. You were just being creative, healer replies.

Silence.

Maybe there’s an hallucinogen in the stay-up drug. And maybe I was hypnotized, because Tristan, after all, is after my mind, and he can make almost anything happen. And all the master talk, and their being united, and us women, stuck, surrounded . . .

Catherine, get a grip.

Maybe I didn’t stay for Soft Curls. Maybe I wanted to be in the fall that would’ve followed that creaking if . . .

You never want to die.

That means that I stayed so I wouldn’t be the kind of woman who doesn‘t care. But you wanted me to just save myself from it all. Just more proof that you’re male.

I’m you. Maybe the male part of you.

You’ve never wanted me to submit, before. You’ve always wanted me safe. If I were the kind of woman who saved herself from all the words, then I’d be submitting fully and always, and then what? A therapy session with Tristan?! I don’t think that masters attend therapy, since what they say just goes.

Let it go. Snap out of it.

Now who’s being repetitive? Okay, I know. I know that this is real, in the now, right now. That I’m nude, and seeking food. That I was seeking something to do to stay awake, and that I got more than I bargained for, in that coatroom and . . .  I know that maybe . . .  perhaps . . . probably sleep somehow managed to intrude on reality, even though I didn’t actually sleep. Because that would logically explain the women’s lips not moving, and all those words nevertheless coming to my mind, because they spilled out from my own files, from my past acquaintances. Right? I looked into those women’s eyes and was reminded of other women I knew, and then . . . So, I wasn’t exactly hallucinating, like you said I wasn’t, and I wasn’t exactly talking to myself, either, I guess, like you said I wasn’t. But then again, you also said that those non-refundables wouldn’t remember sharing nor even thinking and feeling the way that they do, from so deep inside them, so . . . My bad luck and composing, but . . . Catherine takes a deep breath, in order to stop the loop. Why can’t I remember Tristan’s words? I remember imagining the dressed submissive in the hallway talking about a talent show and how great I was at it. So why don’t I remember his words, that I composed?

You don’t wake up and remember all of your dreams either, healer points out. Who does?

I’m awake.

You’re definitely awake.

“Anyway, her case is like so many others: out there, it’s often only once a woman is in a relationship with a guy that she realizes that it’s bye-bye heart, romantic, and more, and hello forever feeling like crap, worrying, and STD clinics,” one of true submissives is telling the other, when Catherine pays attention again.

Heart? Romantic? More?! How would women like them know about any of those?! Catherine picks up on, rather than jumping to the worrying and disease reference.

“I don’t know why she even married a man who has an ex-wife. Even if we put his poor personality aside, the mere fact remains that, when a woman is with a divorced man, his first wife is always his first wife. It doesn’t matter that they’re legally divorced, because it’s still like polygamy, like the new wife is sharing him, even if it’s just with all of his memories of the first, who is older and wiser, who has history with him that remains, and who is still and forever connected to him through their kids, if they have any, as are their families, while the second wife’s so new. There’s so much that she wasn’t a part of, and isn’t a part of. So, she’s always the outsider. And just her younger age makes her even more of one. I would never marry a man who was already married. Too much baggage. And all the decisions that he and the ex have to communicate with each other in order to make, concerning their kids and all, I’d feel like such a nobody, having no say, and having to allow the first wife and my husband to decide parts of my life for me as well, through his kids and where they have to be, as shared by the two of them.”

How do you have a say now, having a master?! Catherine cannot help but think. She is instantly satisfied with herself for asking, because her asking, that is her normal. Real. When she looks down at herself, however, and does not immediately recognize the art and design in Tristan’s creative material, she frowns.

“Hey, why do you look so confused? Isn’t it working, all this weekend play therapy stuff to get you to stop being such a sexual-germaphobe? You’ve had a lot of intimate contact with a lot of different people this weekend, and you’re covered in . . .” Catherine hears.

Shake it off, healer breaks in.

Catherine raises her eyes and looks in the direction of the two women, who are both quiet at the moment. She then quickly looks up at the art on the walls and immerses herself within it.