A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The dream had been so lovely; Anna was walking barefoot across a field of wildflowers along the verge of a wood, not in a park but in some unspoiled place without fences, signs or crowds. The sun was shining on her face and birds were singing, and she came across a stag caught by his antlers in a thicket. He was absolutely magnificent, but all his great strength was useless against the bramble in which he had become entwined. She knew that if she left him there he would soon become easy prey for some predator, so she moved slowly, gingerly toward him, intending to pull the thorns away with her bare hands if necessary so he might go free. But just as she reached out for the nearest of the vines, she was shocked awake by the slamming of the outer door and the braying voice of the guard announcing breakfast.
It was the same thing every day. There was no earthly reason why any of them needed to wake up at a particular time; it wasn’t like the food was hot or worth getting up for, and even if one of them was going to be released or transferred that rarely happened before noon. It was just part of the petty sadism which characterized nearly every prison procedure, like the lights being kept on all night and the prisoners being reshuffled every few days to keep friendships from forming. Anna tried not to let it break her down; for example, once the guard had left she would simply cover her head again and go back to sleep, letting the others take what they wanted from her breakfast tray. But today was different; the guard actually came into the cell and shook her roughly.
“Get up, Cleopatra; you’re rolling out this morning.” The guards had lots of stupid, mocking nicknames for her; she tried to ignore that as well. But the rest of that statement was definitely unexpected.
“What do you mean, rolling out?”
“Just what I said, Princess; your presence has been requested elsewhere.”
Anna knew better than to inquire further; if she expressed any interest at all the guard would refuse to answer on principle. She’d find out soon enough. For a moment she wondered if this might not be some sort of mental torture, but quickly realized the guards didn’t have that kind of imagination. Then she dared to think for a moment that she might have been paroled, but immediately strangled the idea before it could grow into a hope. It was better just to wait and expect the worst.
Four and a half hours later, the wait finally ended; the guard came back and told her to stand, roughly jerking her by the arm without waiting for her to get up on her own. She was then hustled to an anteroom and given back her own clothes, the ones she was wearing when she was arrested; they were wrinkled and had a musty odor, but she still preferred them to the horrible, shapeless prison uniform and so she eagerly exchanged the latter for the former, heedless of the guards she knew were leering at her through the two-way mirror.
She then exited through the far end of the room as instructed, where she was met by one of the dress-uniform guards who interacted with government officials and the like; next to her was a woman in a lab coat, accompanied by what Anna assumed was an orderly. So that’s what this was about; she had been committed to a psychiatric facility. She wasn’t surprised, and was in fact relieved; the treatment there couldn’t be any worse than it was here.
And indeed, it wasn’t. The nurse was friendly and the orderly didn’t bully her; the ride was long and peaceful and Anna slept for most of it, and when the nurse woke her it was with a gentle shake rather than the slam of a door. The state hospital at the end of the journey was still a prison, of course; the doors were just as locked and the guards just as vigilant, but she had a private room with a soft bed and the lights were actually turned off at night. The food was good and she was able to eat sitting at a real table in the cafeteria rather than from a tray in her lap; there was even a little park, thought it was surrounded on all sides by the walls of the huge facility.
For a whole week, she was largely left to her own devices; she listened to music and read books from the ward’s library, and every night they screened a movie. Other than the locked doors and the rigid schedule, the only real reminders that she was in a hospital were the various medical tests and questionnaires to which she was subjected, and the technicians were always polite and friendly. It was so nice, in fact, that Anna began to think that if it weren’t for the lack of privacy this might not be a bad place for a holiday.
Then on the morning of the ninth day, the chief ward nurse told her that she had been assigned a doctor and would start her therapy that afternoon. Anna actually found herself looking forward to that; everyone else here was so pleasant, she couldn’t imagine the doctor being less so. For the first time, she allowed herself to accept the idea that maybe it might be nice to be cured of her problem, to be able to live like everybody else and form normal relationships as her friends did. Perhaps it might even be possible for her to eventually forgive Eve for turning her in; after all, she had done it because she was worried about Anna, and was clearly remorseful when she found out about the brutal way her friend had been treated by the police.
Dr. Lil was a somewhat plump, maternal woman in late middle age, and Anna instantly liked her; she therefore resolved that she would cooperate in every way possible so as to hasten the day when she could rejoin society as a healthy, functioning member, and told the doctor so.
“How wonderful!” she said with genuine emotion. “I’m so very glad to hear you say that, Anna; you see, it was I who initiated the process to have you transferred here. I reviewed your case history and interviewed your friends, and I could clearly see you weren’t an incorrigible deviant.” She opened the folder to refresh her memory. “Now, in school you never showed any signs of perversion; when did you first start feeling sexual attraction to men?”
(With grateful acknowledgement to the work of Charles Beaumont).
One Year Ago Today
“Convenient and Inconvenient Victims” examines the way that government defines consenting individuals as victims, or else victims as consenting individuals, depending on what’s convenient for the government.
Yow, scary brave new world!
Was this inspired by the “Twilight Zone” episode “Eye of the Beholder”? If so, cool!
To a lesser degree, yes. The primary inspirations were two Charles Beaumont stories, “The Crooked Man” and “The Beautiful People” (the latter was adapted for The Twilight Zone as “Number Twelve Looks Just Like You”).
Thanks!
Yes. Us men are such monsters that to be attracted to us must be a mental disorder. Mind you. With the trouble women put us men to some days I think being attracted to women must be a mental disorder! LOL!! Just kidding Maggie.
Now. Women having demanded liberation from the “comfortable concentration camp” and having won their slot at the factory floor? What might they dream about? For a bit of a giggle with a twist…..click on this. It is about 20 mins.
I think any woman attracted to me has a mental disorder! 😛
My wife, though certifiable, has earned her spot in heaven after 25 years with me. She has screamed the words … “GOD YOU ARE SUCH A F***IN’ IDIOT!!” so many times I get turned on when she says it now!
Lock her up!
When I get annoyed with my husband, my preferred insult is “musclehead”. 😀
Try also … “Hey, Boy!”
“Hey Boy! Did you put my delicates in the dryer on ‘HIGH’ with your jeans?”
“Hey Boy! How many days have you left this chicken sitting in the microwave?”
You get the picture. Matters not to me – sometimes I make her call me “Conan” and that makes up for it all. 😉
It used to stagger me when my wife attempted to insult me or humiliate me in public. I used to wonder “what is wrong with women nowdays? They took a vow to HONOUR their husbands.”
If a wife slings off at her husband how can she honour him and stay with him over time? I NEVER criticised or attempted to humiliate my wife. In fact one of the “problems” that women have created for themselves is they give their man no way to discipline the woman and we all know most women have no self discipline. (credit card debt, eh?) My fav#1 has openly said she knows no woman who can control herself properly.
One comment my ex made when we were discussing divorce was that NONE of her friends could believe her stories about me as to how good a husband I had been. I had never, not once, made a comment about her weight except one time when she was too slim for my liking. She was looking more like a teen boy than an adult woman and my level of attraction was suitably down. I have zero desire for teen boys. She told me that ALL her women friends flat out refused to believe I could not have possibly never commented on her weight in a negative fashion. Yet ANY woman will tell you how “hurtful” it is to comment negatively on their weight.
I noted to her then “Gee…fat lot of good it does to be a gentlemen. When you are? No woman believes you.”
I can not remember ANY of my grand mothers or aunts or mother EVER making a negative comment about their husbands in front of me….EVER. Indeed they went out of their way to praise them for whatever small or large successes they had. And in a small country town most successes were modest. Maybe their son did good at sport and dad would be congratulated on helping the boy publicly by his wife. On such little things marriages rest.
When I finally told my father how I was treated inside my marriage he was shocked….but the man hatred in society is still such that he has to support the woman over his own son. Women = saint, Man = sinner. (With the exception of whores.)
The more I read your blog Maggie the more I see fathers of divorce as being treated pretty much the same as prostitutes. It is so strange to me to see that fathers who are NOT YET divorced can not see that they need to do something about this as they will be the next victim. It is also so strange that women who are openly critical of their husbands are fool enough to believe that in doing so they have any chance of remaining happy in their marriage.
Ooh, I would never call my husband a “boy” or anything else demeaning like that. The reason I chose “musclehead” as my preferred insult is that it’s also sort of a backhanded compliment, calling attention to his physical strength. He picked up on that from the very first time I used it, and it tells him that even if I’m angry I don’t really want to hurt his feelings.
Maggie,
you seem not to know how much women talk their men down now in the west. Just FYI. I was writing on the sydney morning herald blogs how my wife used to speak to me…word for word. The women called me a liar and said no wife would ever talk to her husband like that in public.
So one other guy piped up about a mate of his. His mate had somehow offended “princess” so she put him on a “sex ban”. You are well aware wives use sex as a weapon to dominate and control their husband rather than a tool to create love and intimacy between them. That is how dumb most women are. Its very common.
Anyway. She gets horny so she starts banging some other guy because she does not want to end the sex ban early for her husband. The loving couple go to a dinner party at this mates place where wifey proceeds to get so drunk that she blurts all this out to her girlfriends at the dinner table all the while rubbing hubbies nose in the fact she is refusing him sex while banging someone else because she is all “empowered”…this guy reported that she spoke like the three men were not even at the table………then a LOT of other men commented how badly they have been treated.
The entire tone of the SMH relationships blog changed due to my participation and bringing along some mates. We put the women in their place. They do not carry on with their shit there any more. The men do not let them…and more than 50% of my posts were censored. Lies about me were allowed to stand while the rebuttals were binned. Newspapers pander to women. They are well advised to reject such privilege because the men notice.
Check out the mens comments here. This is asking “what ever happened to women and children first” in that boat sinking off Italy. Easy…feminism and family court happened. The men are fed up. We are not taking shit from western women any more.
I got BANNED off here today for saying that I will treat women EXACTLY EQUAL to men which means I retain the right to hit a woman under the SAME circumstances I will hit a man. 1. She hits me first. 2. She steals from me. 3. She is being far too obnoxious and will not shut up. (Sean connery told Barbara walters he would hit a woman under those conditions too).
I was banned presumably for “promoting violence against women” when what I was really doing was promoting EQUALITY. But western women are such hypocrites they do not like the kind of equality that when they hit us we hit them back. Nope. they want the PRIVILEGED of being able to ASSAULT men with no response.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2087585/Cruise-ship-Costa-Concordia-sinking-Whatever-happened-women-children-first.html
Here. I have put the editor of the section into my IngorMANus page as well as a MAN-HATER. I despise men who HATE MEN. I really do. They need to be exposed. It is well past time ALL people were treated as equal before the law. That makes me your supporter and advocate. I can see that is all you are asking for.
http://www.crimesagainstfathers.com/australia/Forums2/tabid/369/forumid/193/threadid/1470/scope/posts/Default.aspx
Oh, I know all right; I just don’t associate with such women.
Alas we are married to them and they are so numerous. How do we avoid them?
I recall the first time I saw this. In 2002 Jennifer turned 40. I was home for the big party we were going to have. Three of them were having their 40th near the same time so we were going to have this big party up at the estate of the british ambassador for business in Dublin. About 100 people came. It was a typical embassy party.
A few days before a small circle of her friends held a lunch. I was invited as I was so rarely home and some of these women wanted to meet me.
These are wives of ambassdors or other embassy staff, assignees from all over the world for business or wives of entrepreneurs like me. In short. MONIED people who would claim to be “the best of t he best”. NONE of these women had ever had a real job in their LIVES. The diamonds and pearls would make 50 cent blink and decide he just can’t do “bling” properly.
As the lunch went on and the wine flowed I started to notice how these women were talking about their husbands. These were men of GREAT achievement. Top 1%. To land one of these men as a husband is EVERY womans dream.
They were running them down left right and center. And as the women got more drunk the criticism got more vicious. They talked openly about manipulating their husbands through sex, demanding expensive gifts for the smallest amount of sex. Demanding family holidays abroad when these men would VERY much prefer to stay at home with their family during holidays because most of us were on the meatgrinder of business travel. There was NOTHING I hated more than my wife demanding we travel for holidays. They talked about how hard they could smack their husbands in the face for the slightest of “infringements” knowing he would not hit back. They were LAUGHING about domestic violence against their husbands!!!
As I sat there I could NOT BELIEVE what I was hearing. Sure. If we were at the local football club and these women were married to drunks who drove cabs for a living and there was not enough money for food may be a little criticism is in order.
But these men were ALL millionaires with HUGE expense accounts and HUGE houses. The kids were in the BEST schools. These women were the lucky 1% and here they were talking shit about their husbands in front of me because they were a bunch of mean spirited lushes.
When I got home I told my wife that if I EVER got word she spoke about me like that I would divorce her. I told her that the people she associated with were a total disgrace. That I had NEVER heard the like of it in my life. I demanded to know HOW could she not be disgusted and simply get up and leave? She had no answer.
How does a man avoid such women Maggie? You think they tell us they are doing this? You think OTHER women tell us? And all us men know that if we pass along to a man that his wife has been trash talking him that he has to deny it and defend his wife. I did.
Women have a LOT to a answer for for not being willing to keep their daughters in check. My grandmothers kept their daughters in check. But women of my mothers generation did not. And because of that we have the disaster we have. Men can not keep women in check. We have no tools by which to do this. Merely raising our voice is DV for which we will be arrested and thrown in jail today. So we are not entering into relationships in vast numbers now. Good for prostitutes I guess.
I would like to see prostitution normalised and as accepted as being gay is now. It will give those men with such bitches for wives a realistic alternative.
Great Story! had me gluded to the end
Thank you, Sam! Their social structure is more complex than I let on, but I thought it better to leave room for the reader to speculate on what exactly is going on here. Hint: The dream is a clue.
Beautifully written and, for me, the end was a revelation. Did I miss some clues?
Thank you! You didn’t miss anything; I played my hand “close to my chest” this time. Even Grace, who usually sees the twist coming, missed the (easily-missed) fact that every human character in the story is female.
I didn’t catch it. For a moment, when she was being transferred, I thought you might be about to have the poor dear mixed up with MKULTRA, but that’s just because I’ve been reading about that lately.
Sailor, have you ever run into a book titled “Operation Mind Control”? If I remember correctly, it came out in the Seventies … a harrowing read.
No, but I’m reading Acid Dreams these days, and it’s covering some of the same creepy CIA illegal ground.
“that every human character in the story is female.”
Heh…reminds of that episode of the (new) Outer Limits: “Lithia”.
I saw a few of those back in the ’90s, but my goodness, they were all so depressing!
LOL@MKULTRA
I didn’t get it either. I thought fictional interludes are erotica Maggs?
I finally read one, and I’m like…. Is there a part two???
No, I specifically told you they aren’t erotica; you just forgot. 😉
And nope, no part two; it’s supposed to leave you guessing. Not all of them are enigmatic, though.
Just when I thought I was diving into a juicy story about a sexually deprived female inmate and a strap on wielding psychiatrist…. lol
Hi Maggie,
this is why women are making a laughing stock out of themselves.
Women have claimed to be “strong, independent, empowered, grrrrrrllls”. They need a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Yet they are such sensitive petals that if a bunch of kids vote to have a “cougar” as a mascot for their sporting teams the ONE woman who claims OTHER WOMEN might be offended has to step in and stop the kids getting what they agreed on.
That makes women pretty delicate little petals dont you think?
http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2012/01/19/utah-school-board-says-cougar-mascot-too-offensive-to-women/
I am reminded that girly magazines are banned on US Nuclear submarines. So these “strong, independent, empowered, grrrrrrllls” who dont need men are SO DELICATE they can be offended by a man looking at a girlie magazine 5,000 kms away under the arctic ice pack. Thats pretty delicate.
Every day us men read the newspaper and we see “offended women” who need to tell someone else what to do. Women are the willing and compliant agents by which DOMINANT MEN enslave us all. Shame so women are willing to actually point that out.
If a bunch of boys decided to call their football team “old codgers” it would be taken as a bit of a joke. Indeed in Australia many teams call themselves “old boys” even if they are a young team.
Again…a bit of the sex worker topic but most sex workers are women and they are getting painted with the same brush. Indeed, in most cases men in the normal community do not know if a woman is a sex worker or not. They do not exactly tell everyone in their normal lives do they? No woman has ever told me she was a sex worker on the side.
Your stories always have an interestingly *gentle* tone — it’s a striking and unusual feature of your style.
I thought of your writing when I encountered its disgusting and monstrous opposite:
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2011/12/19/111219fi_fiction_atwood?printable=true
Atwood’s text is like a mathematical proof of the existence of a necessary moral ugliness once a mind has been evacuated by ideology. It’s a harrowingly simple-minded and braindead text of hatred.
I’m almost sorry to bring it to your attention.
Coming back to this story . . .
I suppose the men are elsewhere, or maybe they’re nonexistent?
Merely segregated, as in Muslim society but without the subordination of either sex. Incidentally, if you want to know how she was caught by the “authorities”, reread her dream and then consider what most protagonists in these stories share.
Read this story last night (or rather, early this morning) and you know what I thought the real moral was? That it didn’t matter how ridiculous the reasons were for locking people up—the correctional system in the U.S. is barbaric and thus for most of the people locked up for nonviolent or consensual crimes, it’s all the same.
That, and that criminalization of consensual behavior is all arbitrary.