This was not the tone of voice, nor the diction, to which we had become accustomed. Her carriage, oddly, now seemed slimily lithe, her voice younger.
She was new to the house, as of the beginning of the semester. I was suddenly less clear as to her age.
“Do you wish to be reported, and expelled?” she inquired.
“No,” we said. “No!”
“Remove your shoes,” she said.
We looked to one another, in consternation.
“I see you must vacate the premises,” she said.
We removed our shoes.
“Now,” she said, “kneel before me.”
“It is acceptable,” she said. “I am a free woman.”
I did not understand this, nor, I suspect, did Eve or Jane. Surely we were all free, all of us. Who was not free?
She came about the desk, and pointed to the rug, at her feet.
“Here,” she said.
Scarcely understanding what we were doing, almost numbly, we knelt before her.
It was the first time I had ever knelt before another person. I suddenly felt, overwhelmingly, the significance of this, placing oneself before another human being, in what was clearly a posture of submission. I was shaken. It was as though I had been struck a blow by nature. Was I in my place? Were Eve and Jane? I almost fainted, with understanding, and uncontrollable, suffusing emotion.
“So,” she said, “you think you know of the Gorean world?”
We looked up at her.
“Get your heads down, to the carpet,” she said, “and place the palms of your hands beside your head.”
We were thus kneeling before her in what I would later learn was the first position of obeisance.
“Now you are as you should be,” she said.
We trembled before her, but, too, it now seemed clear that we would not be required to leave the house, that no motion for expulsion would be brought to the floor in the morning, before the board, before our assembled sisters.
“You think you know something of the Gorean world,” she said, “but you know nothing.”
I suddenly realized that she before whom we knelt was not incognizant of the world of which she spoke.
I suddenly suspected that she, too, was a reader of this unusual literature, in which one encountered a different world, a natural world, one so far removed from the negativities and artificialities of our own.
I was very much aware of my forehead pressed to the carpet.
“What little sluts you are,” she said. “It is clear what you are good for, and the only thing you are good for.”
How dared she call us “sluts”?
Then, to our astonishment, she laughed.
“Girls will be girls,” she said.
A laugh escaped me, one of relief. It was a merry jest. But, somehow, we did not raise our heads.
“Look up,” she said.
We did so, but did not rise to our feet. We had not received permission to do so.
“What naughty young women you are,” she said, “to read such books,” indicating those on her desk.
We struggled to smile.
“Remain on your knees,” she snapped.
We did so.
“Surely you understand how inconsistent such things are with the certain dictates and dogmas of our culture,” she said, “with, say, certain principles and notions which are to be taken as beyond question or review, principles and notions which are to be accepted uncritically, mindlessly, without inquiry or investigation, because they have somehow come to exist, and understand, as well, how they might frighten some individuals, individuals of certain sorts. At the least they are not clearly in accord with various prescribed political proprieties.”
We nodded, but remained on our knees.
“Still,” she said, “I am prepared to be lenient.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Rawlinson,” whispered Eve.
“Please,” I said.
“Please,” said Jane.
“Expulsion may not be necessary,” she said.
“No!” I said.
“I am not unaware,” she said, “of the stresses and pressures imposed upon young women, even proper young ladies, refined and well-bred, such as yourselves, by biology. Indeed, how could you escape them? What could you do other than pretend they do not exist? But such pretensions would be unavailing. They will have their way, in one way or another. They will frequent your thoughts; they will emerge in your dreams.”
We dared not respond.
How could Mrs. Rawlinson, a house mother in a sorority such as ours, dare call attention to such things?
“Do you know what such things tell you?” asked Mrs. Rawlinson.
“No,” said Eve, uncertainly.
“That you are females,” said Mrs. Rawlinson. “And doubtless, in young men, stresses and pressures also exist, quite different from those which trouble you, which you strive to ignore or repudiate, but complementary to them. They, too, in this world, have their different whisperings, which they, too, are expected to strive to ignore or repudiate. But it is hard for them, as for you, to ignore the drums of nature, pounding in the blood.”
It struck me as strange that she had used the expression ‘in this world’? What other world could there be? Could there be another world, one in which one need not strive to ignore or repudiate what one truly was? Was it so wrong, to be true to one’s nature, whatever it might be?
Was nature so terrible?
Had it not preserved extant species for countless generations?
“Too,” she said, “you are young, intelligent, healthy, curious, and hormonally active. Too, perhaps you are not wholly happy, or at ease with yourselves. Perhaps you are miserable, bored, unsatisfied. Perhaps you are uneasy, and know not why. It is understandable, then, that you might wish to look into such things.”
“Yes, Mrs. Rawlinson,” said Eve.
Then she put her head down, quickly, frightened.
“Your interest in such matters,” said Mrs. Rawlinson, “despite what you might think, is not unusual. Many thousands know of these things, here and abroad, in Europe and Asia, and elsewhere. To you, it seems it is a secret. But surely it is a strange “secret” which is unbeknownst shared by multitudes, each of its keepers perhaps unaware of the others. But, too, there are many places where the enemies of nature are less entrenched and powerful than here, places where it does not occur to men and women that obvious biotruths, such as the complementary nature of the sexes, are to be routinely suppressed.”
“We thank you for your understanding,” said Eve.
“Yes, thank you,” said Jane.
“So much!” I said, fervently, gratefully.
“Still,” said Mrs. Rawlinson, “you are guilty. You have had in your possession literature quite improper for this house and the school.”
“Yes, Miss Rawlinson,” said Eve.
“Moreover,” she said, “you are not common, ordinary young women. You are very special young women, young women of high intelligence, education, refinement, wealth, taste, and breeding. Indeed, you are ladies, but not ladies in so exalted and powerful a sense that such as you would grovel and tremble in the very presence of such.”
I did not understand this.
“Rather,” she said, “you are ladies, here, young ladies, in a somewhat archaic sense of the term, a term associated with station, quality, and gentry.”
“Yes, Mrs. Rawlinson!” said Eve.
