Cat Lady on a Hot Tin Roof

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Cat Lady on a Hot Tin Doll's House

Chapter Six

PROFESSOR EMILY FUCHS THIRD LECTURE - February 10, 2066 --

"Reflections in a Golden Eye" by Carson McCullers

Professor Fuchs started by giving considerable background on Carson McCullers, author of "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," the "Sad Café," and the book the class was reading, Reflections in a Golden Eye. "She was born in Augusta, Georgia in 1917 and lived only to age 50. McCullers was in poor health most of her life and apparently lived a rather sad life. She had many of what were considered the worst vices in her time.

"McCullers married young, divorced, then remarried the same man. They made a suicide pact. He committed suicide anyway after Carson McCullers did not follow through. She was apparently a lesbian or at least had lesbian desires as to a number of women. Her desires may or may not have been reciprocated by any of the women.

"McCullers reportedly was drunk much of the time. According to biographer Virginia Spencer, McCullers sat hunched over her typewriter wearing a sweater and leather jacket, drinking scalding sherry tea and an occasional double shot of whiskey, Also, according to Spencer, McCullers would often write with Tennessee Williams, another southern author who is a subject of this class, and would write with him at one end of the table and her on the other with a giant bottle of whiskey between them.

"I will just mention that McCullers was far from the only female writer of her time who drank and that this was not just a southern phenomenon. The very witty Dorothy Parker of New York wrote, 'I like to have a martini, two at the very most. After three I'm under the table, after four I'm under my host.'

"Still, either despite or because of her sad life and vices, McCullers was an author of remarkable insight and sensitivity. In reviewing 'Heart is a Lonely Hunter,' the great African American writer, Richard Wright, wrote that McCullers was the only white writer capable of writing about black characters well.

"'Golden Eye' is not in my view McCullers' best book, but it has the virtue of being relatively short and presenting a view of southern women of McCullers' time. Indeed, McCullers in her book makes a point of saying that both Leonora and Alison, the two main female figures, are southern women.

"The focus of most reviewers of 'Golden Eye' has been the homosexual obsession of Captain Penderton with Private Williams, but the contrast between the two female characters, Mrs. Leonora Penderton and Mrs. Alison Langdon, is also interesting and our focus here.

"They are very different. It is clear that Leonora has committed adultery with at least one man, Major Langdon, and flirted with many. She strips nude in front of her husband, her lover and her lover's wife, Alison, for dramatic effect. Her horse riding surely symbolizes a variety of riding types.

"Poor Alison, on the other hand, is the good, loyal but pathetic woman who loses her child, engages in awful self-mutilation, and dies young. In looking at Leonora and Alison, one might say that McCullers' philosophy of sexual relationships is kill or be killed."

Professor Fuchs went on in her lecture to speculate on how Leonora and Alison may have related to McCullers' life and the implicit rejection of the possibility of women being happy while playing within the rules set forth for women in the south. It is the transgressor who is healthier and survives.

The seminar discussion held at the Talmadge Mansion led to general agreement that, forced to make a choice, all the women would prefer to be Leonora than Alison. "Alison is clearly crazy. My husband is in love with Emily now, but I am not going to snip my nipples off," Nora said.

Emily gave Nora a shocked and confused look and Nora shot back an angry glance before Emily decided to let it pass and change the subject. "We all agree on Alison but what does our group think of Leonora?"

Nora and Donna found Leonora's situation desirable in light of the choices. "if one has to be married, married with adultery does seem the way to go, if you can get away with it," Donna said.

"Yes, but you don't have to be married," Blake said.

Sophia Lewis presented a view of life that she thought applied to "Reflections in a Golden Eye." "Drama and literature are all basically about life and death because life and death are what it's all about. Both Alison and Leonora are failures as women although in very different ways. This may seem overly simple but women in the world and in culture are life. Sex is pleasure and sex leads to life through the creation of children. Alison is prevented by ill health and spousal neglect from creating life. Leonora, despite all her sex, did not create children either."

"I am not just a set of ovaries and a womb," Blake said.

"I did not say you were but in terms of drama and gut reactions, there is this equivalence." Sophia became still more controversial saying, "men equal violence equal death. Certainly, Captain Penderton in his abuse of Leonora's horse and murder of Private Williams is playing the role of the frustrated male homosexual or bi-sexual as the angry death-bringer that started in western literature no later than Homer's Iliad with Achilles."

"Well," Emma said, "the men do contribute a little to life, if only a little bit."

"By your measure, Sophia," Professor Fuchs said, "It would seem that the women on the boats and in the brothels providing sex and having babies non-stop are the big successes in creating life and fulfilling their role."

"That's not what I meant either exactly," Sophia said. "But yes, those women are the big successes if you look at the role of women in some of world literature and in the view of life that Carson McCullers was implicitly criticizing," Sophia answered.

"So, the bulk of world literature, Sophia, Darwin and probably Christine emphasize that we should be sex and reproductive units," Nora said.

"Yeah, just be a good girl, lie back and spread em," Blake said taking Nora's dark quip still further.

"World literature, Darwin and Christine, do not go so far although yes, there is that there among many other things in biology and literature," Christine said.

"You think you have breasts, Blake, just so other girls can kiss them," Emma blurted out.

Emily decided not to assign "Reflections in a Golden Eye" to students again. It clearly contains images and raises questions that are too strong even for many mature adults. Maybe that applies to "Sanctuary" too I'm afraid, Emily thought.

During dinner, Donna took things a bit further after hearing Kimmy mention money problems again, "Now that we've heard so much of the value of sex and breeding, maybe Madison, Kimmy, Codie, Blake, Christine and Crimson should go ahead and put themselves up in one of the auction events. Some of them would get the funds they need and the one who gets to be the free use sex object gets to fulfill her real purpose in the world. I'm sure you'd fetch a pretty price Christine from some biology professor who wanted to discuss evolution while fucking."

"Let's leave off that please," Codie said. "McCullers did not come close to saying anything like that and Christine, Sophia and Blake were only kidding while throwing in various amounts of bitterness and sarcasm."

In further discussion, Madison, Kimmy and Crimson indicated that they seriously might not have a better choice than risking indentured servitude as sex workers. Codie and Blake refused to take them seriously. Virginia suggested obliquely that Madison, Kimmy and Crimson were trying to get people to help them financially. Avery said she was horrified by the idea of any woman taking that risk. If they couldn't afford college, they should just find nice men and get married.

Christine joked that she wasn't interested but that she'd like to watch if some of the other women decided to go that route.

"Since you mentioned watching, I have an idea," Donna said. "After I visited one of the gambling boats last Saturday, a man connected with the auction events suggested that I watch an auction training this Friday night. The women involved are selling tickets to the auction training for $200."

Nora, Emily and Crimson were thankful that Donna did not mention them being with Donna when that suggestion was made while Avery assumed, correctly, that it was her Robert who made that suggestion.

Donna went on, "Most auctions I am told are very private so as to protect the identity of the women who are not sold, but the women involved in this auction event are reportedly quite shameless about maximizing the revenues from this activity that will result in one of them becoming a free use sex object; you might say 'sex slave' if you weren't as jittery about the term 'slave' as all the guys are who are involved in the business.

"It would be a kind of pricey evening for students to attend, but I am willing to pay the $200 for any of the students in the seminar who want to come with me," Donna concluded.

"It sounds intriguing," Virginia Talmadge said, "Emily, I realize that you aren't much better off than the students and would make it my treat for you to come."

"Well, eh, thank you," Emily said half-heartedly, "but Donna has not told us really what this involves."

"I can't say that I know the details, just I was told that women who have agreed to risk becoming a sex slave in one of those auction games, like Loretta Alt did, often arrange a training night before the auction so that all the women do what they can do on the big day to make as much money as they can. After all, if a girl's going to risk spending years as a breeding sex slave, she's going to want to make sure it is worthwhile. It was suggested that the particular women involved in this auction don't really need any training and are just holding this public event as a way to make more money and advertise."

"A rather dubious form of saleswomanship," Blake said.

"You might say something like that if you want to be judgmental," Donna responded. "Anyway, that's all I know except I was told that the women involved are part of a club they call Daughters of Boats or Dobs' for short. The women were all conceived below deck in one of those gambling and sex boats that have been operating on the Mississippi and in the Gulf of Hurricanes for over 25 years. It seems that although all these women were put up for adoption after their biological mothers had them, they were able to learn from some records that their mothers were sex workers on one of the boats."

"You think they have an instinctual calling to return to the place that they were conceived?" Nora said.

"You say that as a joke, Nora, and you are right that the women are not sea turtles," Christine said, "but it is possible that a willingness to put one's body on the line is to some extent in the women's DNA. Learning that they were conceived by a woman who was a sex worker on a boat might trigger an interest in taking a chance on becoming a sex worker on a boat that other women do not have."

WATCHING AN AUCTION TRAINING

So, it came to pass that most of the seminar group, Emily, Virginia, Sophia, Nora, Donna, Christine, Blake, Codie, Crimson, Kimmy, and Madison made it to a modest-sized auditorium in Memphis two days later. Robert Gelt and Betty Jo Sanders were already there along with about 150 other people.

"This is great. The girls already have the $3,000,000 they asked to hold an auction and this event should raise at least another $25,000 after paying Servant Services for the hall and other help," Robert Gelt said.

"The economics of this whole business still confuses me," Donna said. "If there are 200 guys interested in participating in the auction for whatever woman is auctioned, to raise $3 millions, that's an average of $15,000 to put up before you even get to the auction. Given all the payments you told us about, Robert, made to promote a particular woman being the one put up at auction, a buyer could put up 30K or more and come home at the end with nothing."

"It's more likely that 10 serious bidders put up $ 300,000 and may put up almost that much in voting and only one of them will come home with a woman," Robert responded.

"An event like this, a public training, is to raise a little side money from people like you that aren't seriously interested in bidding on the woman chosen to become a FUSO. To tell the truth, these women don't need training so it's pretty much a sex show."

"No, I mean, if it takes millions to even get a woman, is it worthwhile for a business to be involved in buying a FUSO at auction at all?" Donna said.

"You looked at sports salaries lately?" Robert responded.

"In these auctions, a man or, more likely, a company, puts up a half million bucks to get to the auction and doesn't win the bidding war, well, that's a business expense. If they bring home what they want, though, for say a total of $6 million or so, they have an asset for which they can make maybe $20,000 a night for maybe 300 nights a year for seven years. That's six million the first year and that's being conservative. Of course, the bean counters will reduce the value of the later years using a present value calculation based on some estimated interest rate, but it's still clear that even if the woman is struck by lightning the beginning of the second year, the company has made money. Don't worry about the bidders' profits. They're doing just fine."

"You make my head hurt," Nora said.

"Yeah, and using your assumptions, don't you have to figure that the woman could cost about another $5 million when you figure in the cost of all the auctions in which the company didn't get anything," Codie said.

"True, but it probably won't be that bad and there are a lot of potential revenues and expenses that we haven't counted, but I think you can see that the numbers roughly make sense and the buyers make lots of money, the women make some money, and, of course, Servants Services Inc. gets a fee, a modest 1% on the sales deal."

"You're so generous," Blake added. "Regular pimps take a lot more."

"Are we going to bore each other with financial details or have some fun watching silly young girls embarrass themselves?" Virginia said.

"That starts soon," Betty Jo Sanders said. "but you might like to know some more details about what these women have agreed to. As you can see, there are six women about to strip and learn how to best present themselves. That is bold but they also have agreed that the free use sex object will remain so for 14 years, twice the usual 7 years, and there are no restrictions on the use of the FUSO other than the state-required limits of no permanent physical damage. They are going all in to make money.

"Further, they have agreed to a series of elimination rounds that will subject even most of the women who escape becoming the FUSO to a lot of sex. All six will be presented nude with no limits on photography, before one of them is eliminated from the pool through a random process. They will be presented again and everyone who put up money for there to be an auction will be able to check out the merchandise for an hour of touching and stimulation.

There will be a round of voting that will eliminate one woman from the pool. The four left will go to bedrooms where the top three voters for each woman will get a half hour each to do anything that doesn't damage the woman. The elimination process goes on like this for two more rounds until there is one woman left to be the FUSO. Having been displayed, fondled, and probably had sex many times, the FUSO is auctioned and will spend the next fourteen years being used for sex as much as a woman can be. No limits on use of the FUSO other than those required by law."

"So, all six are putting out tonight, most are putting out again during the choosing process, and one is a sex slave until she's in her mid-thirties," Codi said.

"Oh stop," Blake said. "These girls are simply insane. The cheapest street prostitute has more control of her body that the FUSO will have here."

"We don't label it that way," Betty Jo said. "But, as you can understand, by the time the process is over, the woman who is second to last out may have had sex nine times or more over a bit over three hours. It requires some stamina. But that's if no woman surrenders."

"What happens then? They all get lobotomies?" Blake snorted out.

"No, but these women to raise interest in the auction, agreed to the 'surrender reduces pool' clause. So, men will be trying to get them to surrender during the auction and, if one or more does, the game goes on with a smaller pool. Theoretically, five women could be sold at auction if four surrender. It's possible some of these women may have already agreed to surrender and just not told the other women about it but unlikely given what they have agreed will happen to any woman being sold in this auction."

"Oh, the thrilling skullduggery of it all," Nora said in her usual tone of distain for the world and everything in it.

"In short, these women, daughters of sex workers, have agreed to terms that are about as humiliating and likely to lead to them to become sex slaves for 14 years as the rules allow?" Donna said. "

"Precisely," Betty Jo allowed, "That what they wanted and that's what we worked out with them. They want to raise as much money as they can. Also, they have placed no limits on how much the one sold can be used for sex. The loser might have 14 years of non-stop gang bangs subject only to the states' laws that their health cannot be harmed and the boat's natural interest in the women on their boat not going insane."

"I gather you have some role in this process," Emily said.

"Yes, my role at Servant Services is to help groups of women shape the auction contracts that they desire," Betty Jo said.

"It's a scummy job, but someone has to do it," Blake shot out.

"I don't consider helping women raise money and satisfy their desires to be scummy, Ms. Cabot," Betty Jo replied. "It is so nice that you've never had to participate in anything like this if you don't like such things. Some women have a more limited range of personal choices than Mayflower bitches."

The training was about what Emily feared and expected. The women were taught how to pose kneeling with their breasts thrust forward and their thighs spread enough to allow access to their most private parts. They were taught to smile through all the public fondling and how to give and get the most out of a sexual encounter that would last less than a half hour. Each of the six had sex more than once during the course of the training.

Despite the fact that they were all 19 or 20, it was clear that they did not really need much training. All six of the women gave every indication of enjoying the experience.

Emily asked Robert, "I don't get it. Under these rules, if a woman is trying to avoid being put up for auction to become the free use sex object, wouldn't she try to be as unattractive and unresponsive as possible."

"Yes, but that would cut into the amount of money raised and also earn her the disgust of the women who agreed to take the risk with her. But mainly, let's face it, some of the women secretly want to become the FUSO. If they put out the best they can, they can raise money for themselves and their friends and tell the world that they were being good team players when what they wanted was to spend their lives having sex all the time in a safe environment.

"Even women who don't secretly want to be the FUSO get caught up in the excitement of it all. All the women participating in these events like sex. Chaste virgins, prudes and frigid women don't sign up to risk becoming free use sex objects. When they get turned on, they perform like it. These women don't think about strategy during the act.