Chapter 23 : Being Philosophical

BIRDSONG IN THE MORNING

"Tolya?"

"Mmmm?"

"How is Vyera getting on with her research?"

Such a question! It is early morning and Anatoly and Sveta are in bed together. Sveta is awake but that is far more than you could say for Anatoly. To be shaken out of sleep and interrogated about a slave's research project at this time in the morning. For goodness sake!

"What? Er ... I ... er ... I don't know. I have not spoken to Mendeleyev for ... er ... a while. I have been thinking about Alana and Vitaly and little Dmitry. I think she is "writing up" or something, so there is a comprehensive account of what she has done ... er..."

Anatoly yawns, turns over and attempts to re-establish his connection with the unconscious.

"Tolya! Are you listening?"

"No, not really."

"I think we should give Vyera something back. We have taken a lot. It's time to give back."

"Huh? OK ... erm ... yes, I guess so. We could..."

But before he can finish his sentence, Anatoly is asleep again, leaving Sveta to make plans.

BEING PHILOSPOHICAL

I am coming to the end of my project. There are so many mixed emotions. I am amazed I have been able to marshal the data, carry out the statistical tests and answer the questions I set myself when I started. For a moment I think about how the whole project began, in an untidy office with Professor Dawney talking about some observational field work she wanted me to carry out. It is a life-time ago. Trying to remember begins to make me feel sick: it was so long ago and so far away! I have a sensation which is almost like vertigo.

Over the past several weeks I have spent all my free moments writing up, checking references, checking the Bibliography (Dr Mendeleyev is very particular about how the citations are written out) and assembling the overall account:-

ñ Preface

ñ Introduction

ñ Statement of the Problem

ñ The Subjects Under Investigation

ñ Methods of Data Collection

ñ The Data

ñ Analysis of Statistics

ñ Inferences

ñ Discussion of the Results

ñ Suggestions for Future Investigations

ñ Concluding Remarks

ñ Bibliography.

It is a Thesis. It is my thesis. And now it is complete. But what will happen to me? Now my intellectual labours are complete, will I remain just a domestic slave and a sexual muse? I have completed the task I have been given and now I wait to be used for something else. That's what it is to be a slave.

What I still can't quite understand is why my life has changed in this totally unexpected undeserved way? The 'how' is straight-forward but the 'why' remains obscure.

Before I was Active. Now I am passive.

At this point in my life, I had expected to be obsessed with having my research published. In fact, I now obsess about shopping. Running the errands. Reporting when I enter the Metro and leave, when I enter the shop and when I leave.

I used to teach students. Now I use my body to pleasure other people. Instead of teaching, I fuck and I suck and I lick.

I expected to find myself enthusiastically searching my intellectual horizon for new research ideas and opportunities. Now, I pour my efforts in to cleaning, so not a speck of dust nor spot of dirt is left. Partly I do this because it is how I am, but mainly there is the certain prospect of punishment for any failure to maintain standards.

I used confidently make presentations at meetings of my colleagues: now I am glad to wait at table and I am grateful to be completely out of the lime light.

Before, I would prepare applications for research grants. Now I, with unrestrained enthusiasm, prepare my body for physical and sexual exploitation.

Before, I disciplined my mind for the intellectual challenges I would face. Now I have my body disciplined to be at the disposal of other people; my Owners, my Trainer and anyone else I am given to.

In my occasional moments of clarity, as I am just now, I am horrified. Before long an unscratchable sexual itch begins and I throw myself into an abject surrender to physical and sexual slavery. I love it, perhaps as I have loved no other.

AN INTELLECTUAL EXAMINATION

Neena comes into my cell. The lights have just faded up and I have gone through my daily ritual of personal housekeeping. I am expecting her to give me a list of my tasks for today. I have been back at the Dacha for several days now. Alana and Vitali do not need my help for the time being and I have picked up my routine once more. Today we will run outside and I will go to the gym for a 'shoulder and pectoral muscles and heavy weights' session but Neena surprises me. "Tomorrow, rabinya, you will be examined on the research work you have completed. Your report has been properly printed and bound, using the papers you have been working on. One copy is in Russian. The other in English. Today, after exercise, you will work upstairs in the office and review the English copy. Mark any errors in pencil. Score through technical errors with a forward stroke and spelling and grammatical errors with a backwards stroke. The computer will be turned off, by the way.

She smiles a smug smile, to remind me of the day when I tried to make a bold and desperate escape through email.

I reply, brightly, "Thank you Gaspazha Neena, for keeping me from temptation!"

"Your visits to Moscow have made you cheeky, rabinya Vyerka. Perhaps you need a caning to keep you grounded?"

This time I keep any more clever remarks silent in the privacy of my mind and merely hang my head.

Some two hours later, I am in the office. Coffee has been provided.

Two large-ish books are open on the office table. It is my Thesis, except not officially a 'Thesis', I suppose but merely it is a research report which I am completing for others, who will benefit from my work. I suppose binding the report into a book keeps it tidy?

By the end of the day I can report to Neena that there are only six small typing errors in the English version and the report can be presented tomorrow – but to whom? I made a detailed summary at the University some months ago to all the people who cared about the project. The only person left out was Angela. For goodness sake, Angela will not be coming will she? Suddenly I feel as if I have been stood under a cold shower. I feel sick, cold, distraught, desperate. What if Angela was instrumental in proposing me for abduction? What would I say to her? I imagine myself standing before her, naked. I present the report. She begins to cross examine me, all the time smirking. Her face eloquently telling me that I should not have left her to marry Joe, that my present condition is my punishment for disloyalty whilst her voice delivers calm, measured, taxing academic questions.

During the night, Angela visits me in my dreams. I kneel at her feet, just like I used to do. She speaks. I listen. She proposes. I do as I am told. She demands. I agree. She tells me to leave Joe. I refuse.

I wake up alone in my cell. I realise that she has won. I have been taken from Joe and he from me. This is my punishment for disloyalty. Life imprisonment and slavery.

In the morning, Neena brings me to the dining room. I am dressed in a white shirt, a black skirt and black slip-on clogs on my bare feet. I am sweating and trembling. I will have to face Angela.

"Vyerka! What is the matter with you?"

I can't speak. I open my mouth but no words come.

Neena grips my arm firmly. It hurts but the pain is welcome. It keeps me from my fears. "Now listen to me. Listen to me. You will present your report just as you did at MSU. You will answer the questions put to you. You will do no more and you will do no less. Do you understand Vyerka? You will knock and walk through that door and I will follow behind you. You will do it now."

I am sitting on one side of the dining room table. Opposite me sit, Dr Mendeleyev, Julia Romanova and another man I have never seen before. He says he is Dr Andrei Mikhailovitch Akunin. He is an epidemiologist.

The three of them take me through each section of the report, asking how the research began, how the subjects were chosen, randomization, blinding the subjects to the nature of the investigation, informed consent (consent, for goodness sake!), data collection, verification, data organization, analysis and the inferences drawn. All the questions seem astonishingly easy. I am still waiting for the difficult questions to begin when Dr Mendeleyev, acting as chairman, draws proceedings to a close. (1)

"Thank you Vyera Anatol'yevna. Please be patient with us for a few moments whilst we reflect on what you have told us."

I feel Neena tap me on my shoulder and the two of us retire into the drawing room next door. The Mongolians have left tea. Neena directs me to sit in one of the chairs and pours me a cup.

"I am sorry Gaspazha! I have not poured for you. Forgive..."

"Be quiet Vyera. Drink your tea and wait patiently like a good little slave, will you?"

"Yes, Gaspazah. I am sorry."

Why has she called me Vyera? That is the adult form of my name and unsuitable for a slave. My examiners called me Vyera Anatol'yevna. Perhaps Dr Akunin does not know 'about my situation'?

"Your bum will have plenty of opportunity to be sorry, soon enough."

Suddenly Julia Romanova is at the door. She smiles. I stand. "Dr Kuznetsova", she says, "please follow me."

Uncomprehending, I follow. In the dining room, Gaspadeen and Gaspazha Kustensty have joined Dr Mendeleyev and Dr Akunin. Ssisma, one of the Domestics is standing with a tray bearing glasses of champagne.

Dr Mendeleyev leans forward across the table and offers me his hand. "Congratulations, Vyera Anatol'yevna. My colleagues and I agree. You have defended your Thesis successfully. Your Thesis has met the standards required by the Lomonosov State University of Moscow to award the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. You are now Dr Vyera Anatol'yevna Kuznetsova."

Every one applauds - and I weep. Gaspazha Sveta lays her arm across my shoulder. "There, there, little girl", she says as if comforting a small child. "There, there."

GRADUATION.

The cars climb to the crest of the hill and park so their passengers may get out; Neena, Vyera, Pyotr, Anatoly and Sveta. In front of them, a vista of Moscow is spread out. Behind them, the central tower of Moscow State University rears up. Until 2000 it was the tallest building in Europe. (2) It is a breathtaking wedding cake of a building. Magnificently constructed and detailed but it is a building to overawe and a building to make the individual feel small and insignificant.

Vyera feels small now, as she is lead towards it. Poytr in front. Neena to her side Her Owners walking behind. She remembers the story she heard at school as a little girl: of Abraham leading Isaac up the mountain to be sacrificed. (3)

She is smartly dressed. A simple, elegant, formal black dress and shoes. Her legs are bare save for a gold ankle bracelet. It could be decorative but Vyera knows it is symbolic, to remind her that she is not as other people are. Reminding her that she is a slave, where ever she is and whatever she has been told to do, she is and she will always be enslaved. She has a new collar for today. A seamless, round, brushed silver metallic band encircling her neck. It is understated but this new understated collar has all the important lethality of the collar she usually wears. Neena told her so.

They pass through the main entrance, into the foyer. The little party stands for a moment. Gaspadeen Kustensky extends his hand: "Well done, Vyera. None of your predecessors have such an achievement to their credit. Congratulations!"

Sveta Kustenskaya leans forward to embrace and kiss. A light kiss on her cheek. "Remember to enjoy the moment. We are so very proud of you. We will enjoy watching you so much!"

The Kustenskies and Pyotr leave and Vyera is alone with Neena. "You have read the instructions?"

"Da, Gaspaszha."

"You know where to go?"

"Da, spaseeba."

"Good. We will all be waiting for you at the end."

Neena smiles and Vyera is at last alone, alone in a crown of happy boisterous young people but Vyera knows she has expectations to fulfill. She looks at her academic gown and in a moment of clarity, remembers that this moment should have been shared with others,

But they are no others, only Owners.

Vyera takes her place and the Ceremony unfolds in the cavernous University Assembly Hall. At the front, a dais stands before an enormous mosaic splattered with Soviet iconography in red and gold. (4) Against this background, the University Rector delivers speeches to the new graduates: congratulations on their achievement, recognition of their hard work done, thoughts on what the future may hold for them. Ah, if they only knew! Could any of those present imagine what the future might be or the bare headed girl in the front of the congregation? A future which will involve corporal punishment, bodily modification, sexual, physical and intellectual exploitation, perhaps disposal when her usefulness came to an end and even execution if she dared to abscond?

It is coming close to her time. Those to her right are standing, passing forwards under the orders of the Ushers. She obediently follows, as she should, to walk across the dais, to shake hands with the Faculty, to receive her scroll and to walk on into her future as Dr Vyera Anatol'yevna Kuznetsova, PhD, Lomonosov State University, Moscow. Dr Kuznetsova, rabinya.

Photographs always make people smile. Against the heroic, monolithic, background of the University buildings, on a warm sunny summer's day Vyera is photographed in her academic robes, black and gold, her head covered by her Doctor's hat, her Scroll in her hands, on her own, with Neena, with Anatoly, with Sveta, with her new "family" all together and in the company of Dr Mendeleyev and Dr Romaonva, as an academic triumvirate.