Impressions on Iron Gates Chapter Four

Introduction to Nadezhda and the Lieutenant

The organization is holding a special event, and the top brass are meeting several days in a row. This includes the Lieutenant who, despite his officially low rank, is among the favorites of the commander. He is famous for his insanity and sadism and is rumored to have a direct line to the commander given his unique proclivities and strength.

Instruction is also being given to certain specialized personnel. Nadezhda, privileged member of the organization by virtue of her father’s being the organization’s veteran armaments manufacturer, is also a code breaker and intelligence desk operator. She is petite, thin, sharp, and wears her fascination for the sadistic lieutenant on her sleeve. She’s made her way into his bedroom for the past four nights.

Here we find the single adult heterosexual sex scene of the book. It is a portrayal at the dynamic between male dominant and female pet. It combines the tense and uncertain dynamic of real-life psycho-paranoid tyrant in sadistic organizations, and the sexual roleplay that allows the female to feel totally possessed by the beast, and for the male to experience complete abandon to lustful impulses.

While the second chapter is one of the crowning jewels of violent psychological insight in the book, the fourth does not fall behind in its covert plethora of unstated implications. There is something to be said about the links between chapters, and about how the reader is kept guessing. Some things will not be mentioned here in order that the individual reader may thereby keep reading a living text.

Some of these insights make more sense, or are revealed, upon further thought if the reader is inclined to such deciphering, with the benefit of hindsight after further events have unfolded. Let it be noted, in any case, that there is a discrepancy between what Nadezhda consciously desires and what her personality and actions communicate to the world she inhabits.

The Lieutenant, on his part, is completely congruent. Whatever he is in his every action, psychotic and “dysfunctional” as he would be described today, he also consciously chooses to be. His every thought and emotion are directed towards that very concrete reality. He is aligned with the unpredictable yet highly functional evil that he manifests in the world.

The laws of the universe play according to what you tell them with every living breath. The stories that you concoct in your mind are only distractions. They are mostly lies you tell yourself. Your life, taken as a whole, in detail, in both its explicit and implicit factors, is the record of your communication with the laws of existence.

Take that into consideration also when a tyrant rises and falls. And when they and their descendants stay in power across the centuries. Take that into account also when you look at your existence and wish you were something else.

Be careful what you wish for, because it will come in the way that most suits your nature.