John Norman - Prize of Gor

The younger woman was then coming up the aisle, toward the exit.

How their eyes had locked together for that moment, the eyes of the older woman bright with hatred, and cold hostility, the eyes of the younger woman sparkling with a secure, insouciant amusement.

The older woman had seen in that moment that the eyes of the younger, those of the charming, stupid-looking slut, as she saw her, were blue. Her hair then might be naturally blond, not that that mattered in the least. She was a low sort. Her hair was long, rich, and silky, the sort in which a man’s hands might idly play. It was probably dyed, false, dyed! She had no right to be with such a man!

The young man had followed his companion into the aisle.

Their eyes met, and the older woman shrank back. She trembled. She almost fell. She turned and seized the top of a seat, with both hands, to steady herself. It seemed the same! He was so close! The resemblance was uncanny, shocking, indescribable.

He looked at her with no sign of recognition.

“Excuse me,” he said, and moved about her.

The voice, she thought. It is the same! The same! But it could not be the same, of course. Yet it seemed so much the same!

He was moving away.

Unaccountably, unable to restrain herself, she hurried after him, and pathetically seized at his sleeve.

He turned about, seeming puzzled.

She stammered. “Did you enjoy the performance? I thought I once knew someone like you. Long ago!”

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“Do you, do you?” she begged.

“Are you well?” he asked.

“Yes, yes,” she stammered. “I just wondered if you enjoyed the performance.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I thought I knew you,” she whispered, “I mean, someone like you, once, long ago.”

“It was adequate,” he remarked. “I must be going now. My friend will be waiting.”

“I thought the performance was powerful,” she whispered.

He shrugged, the same shrug, it seemed!

“Do you attend the opera often?” she asked, pressingly.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Next Saturday we may see the new staging of La Bohème .”

A husband and wife, interestingly, were to sing Rodolfo and Mimi in that production.

“Good-day,” he said, and turned away, moving toward the exit.

She felt herself a fool, and how annoyed he must have been, though his demeanor was the image of forbearance and courtesy itself. Perhaps, she thought, she should run after him, to apologize, she, in her fifties, and despite her status as an academician, one not unknown in her field, surely one with suitable publications, one with, too, impeccable credentials. But that would not do, of course. She should not run after him.

It was only an oddity, a coincidence, something to be forgotten by tomorrow.

But she did hurry after him, not to approach him, of course.

That would not have done, at all. But, somehow, she did not want to lose sight of him. She did not understand the importance of this to her, or fully, but doubtless it had to do with the oddity of the resemblance, so remarkable, to the student, from so many years ago, he who was never forgotten, he who was recollected with ever fresh humiliation and anger, but, too, invariably, with fascination. This was at least, she told herself, a small mystery, whose denouement, however predictable and disappointing, might prove to be of interest.

In the outer lobby she was momentarily disconcerted, even frightened, that he was gone. But then she saw him to one side, waiting to buy an opera book, an account of the history and staging of the piece. His companion was waiting some yards away, looking toward the exit.

She approached the younger woman. It did not seem courageous to do so, but, somehow, necessary. She would have been terrified to approach the young man again, after their first interlude, for beneath the facade of his politeness there had seemed a subtle severity and power in him, but the other was merely a woman, and she did not much care what transpired between them. It was as though the blond woman did not really matter in these things, save in so far as she might prove useful.

She would later revise her view on these matters.

“Excuse me,” said the older woman, approaching the blond, younger woman, she holding her wrap about her. How well she stood, how well-figured she was, thought the older woman, with a touch of envy. That was doubtless the sort of body that men might seek. She herself, the older woman, in her youth, had not been so large, so buxom. She had been small, and delicate, and exquisitely, but not amply, figured. She had been sometimes thought of as “dainty,” but she hated that word, which seemed so demeaning, so minimizing. It had suggested that she might be no more than a biological, sexual confection of sorts, a bit of fluff, of interest perhaps, but unimportant, negligible in a way, as a human being. She had once thought of ballet, when she was quite young, before being brought in her young majority into the higher, sterner duties and understandings of the movement. But, too, she had been, in her way, interestingly, though not buxom, or obtrusively so, a bit too excitingly figured for that. Small as she was, and slim as she had been, there had been no doubt about, in its lovely proportions, the loveliness of her bosom, the narrowness of her waist, the delightful, flaring width of her hips, the sweetness of her thighs. She was, as thousands, and millions of others, though perhaps a bit short, and a little slim, a normal human female, of a sort greedily selected for in countless generations of matings and prizings. So, it seems, she was neither excessively buxom, nor, neither, tall, linear, flat-chested and boyish, a variety often praised and recommended for imitation in cultures which encourage the denial or blurring of sexual differences. Rather, she was much like most women, the normal human female, though perhaps a little shorter, and a tiny bit slimmer, that of course on the brink of her early womanhood and beauty.

The fact that she might have bit a little shorter, and a little lighter, a little slimmer, than many women had given her from a very early age a deep, internal understanding, more than that of many other women, of the size and power of men. To be sure, this can be brought home to all women, and with perfection.

The blond woman turned about, surprised.

“I am very sorry to disturb you,” said the older woman. “I didn’t mean to stare in the theater. Please forgive me. But I am sure I have seen your friend before, or, rather, I mean I am sure that I have seen someone very much like him, long ago. There must be, there might be, it seems possible there might be, a relationship. Perhaps he is a son of my former friend, of many years ago, or such. I am sorry to trouble you about this, but I am very curious about this matter.”

The blonde regarded her, coldly.

“I’m sorry,” said the older woman, “but I wonder if I might trouble you for his name?”

“I do not know you,” said the blonde, and turned away.

“I’m sorry,” said the older woman, “very sorry.”

The older woman backed away, chagrined, embarrassed, and mingled in the crowd, trying to be unobtrusive, mixing in with milling patrons, with those dallying in the lobby, with those waiting for friends, or perhaps for arranged transportation.

The young man returned to his companion, and she must have said something to him, doubtless annoyed, for he looked in the direction of the older woman, who instantly looked away, pretending to busy herself with nearby posters, that their eyes not meet.

The couple then made their way through the exit to the sidewalk outside.

As they left, the older woman watched them, shaken. Then she noticed that, about the left ankle of the blonde, there was a bandage, wrapped tightly there, in several layers. Doubtless she had sustained an ankle injury, though her gait did not seem affected. Oddly, it seemed that something like a ring, or ridge, might lie beneath the bandage. That was suggested by the closeness of the bandage to the ankle at the top and bottom and its widening out, or bulging a little, in the center. The ring, or ridge, seemed to encircle the ankle, and, whatever it was, it was fully concealed by the bandage. Doubtless it was a medical device of some sort, designed to strengthen, to lend support to, the injured ankle.