The Slave

by Laura Antoniou

  By that time, she knew that her fantasies of surrender and degradation weren’t only unusual, they were very bad. She knew because she read all these books. Slaves didn’t talk about their former slavery in glowing terms. People were hurt, families destroyed, and people died because of slavery. The whole country went to war over it (or so she understood it), and the good guys were the ones that didn’t want it.

  To make things worse, she became aware of the social realities of her time and life. When she read about the beginnings of women’s emancipation, she decided to do a school paper on women’s lives in earlier times. And much to her dismay, it seemed that her mind had divided into two distinct parts which were absolutely incompatible with each other.

  One the one hand, she was absolutely horrified at what women had to live with in the past, and even right now, in different countries. She had taken much of her life for granted. But the thought that few women ever attained the level of education that she had right now, that they couldn’t vote, or own property, that they couldn’t go to college or be doctors or lawyers, this was all amazing to her. It made her angry.

  Now she understood the news stories about the women who marched in Washington, or through other city streets. She extended her research to modern feminism, and liked what she read. She was as good as any boy! She could be whatever she wanted to be!

  She was a teenage feminist.

  Who had evil thoughts. Thoughts that were just not acceptable to her political beliefs, but were in fact betrayals of the simple feminism she had been exposed to.

  Because even as she began her tentative reaching out to the world of feminism, she also retained those intense fantasies of her childhood. They invaded her dreams, and they waited for her to lie awake at night, tossing and turning until she knew that only one thing would let her sleep.

  By now, those thoughts had evolved into full-fledged, soap opera style stories. In one, she was a Greek slave, clad in a short, diaphanous tunic, utterly owned, totally dominated, available to the members of her master’s household. In this one, she grew to a position of some authority, getting to manage the other slaves. But when that became too threatening, she imagined that the other slaves planned a revolt and that she was terribly punished for not seeing it early enough, and demoted as well. That scenario lasted for years.

  In another, she was a rebel spy in some mysterious, futuristic government. (This one came about after she discovered science fiction.) She was captured by the ruling forces, tortured, and often, brainwashed into joining them. That fantasy was full of fetish images, boots and capes, cuffs and collars. She imagined that they had drugs to make her fantasy character pliable or confused, or to cause her pain. It was a much darker fantasy than her Greek one, but it had its rewards.

  She didn’t know how to masturbate to orgasm yet, not quite. But she did know that thinking of these stories made her feel good, and that when they were accompanied by select touches and pinches, she felt even better. And the enforced silence of her nightly explorations only added to their power. She couldn’t afford to let Mom or Dad hear as she experienced the pleasures of her fantasies.

  And she knew, absolutely knew, that her new feminist heroines would never, ever approve of such visions and dreams. They shamed her. But she could not reject feminism because she had secret evil thoughts! The best that she could do was master the thoughts and put them away.

  Robin found a refuge in academics, burying herself in more books and more studies. No one was surprised when she skipped a grade; everyone was proud when she received special honors in graduations. She discovered fine art and spent weekends strolling through museums and going to different libraries and galleries for showings. She wrote pages and pages of journals, recording every thought but the most disturbing ones, pushing them back with new strength and knowing that they would return with new cunning. She ran, sometimes faster, sometimes further, never an award winner on the track, but keeping it up for the release of energy it promised.

  Sublimation, she wrote one day, in a rush of frustration, is as exhausting as pursuit. She found herself starting to drift off into daytime fantasies from time to time, while watching someone else or while waiting for something to happen.

  Standing on line at the supermarket led to lurid fantasies about being dragged into the dark, cool stockroom and humiliated and ravished by hulking stockboys and their leering supervisor.

  Lying at the side of a pool over summer vacation with the sounds of splashing and the sensation of tightness as water droplets evaporated from her skin invariably led to thoughts of pirates, their hands and mouths all over her helpless body.

  Then, one afternoon when she was sixteen, she was fooling around with one of her girlfriends in the attic of the girl’s house. They had already gone through a wedding album two generations past, and giggled at the clothing and gasped at the small waists of the women in the bridal party. Then, Cheryl, the friend, found someone’s old army stuff and put on an officer’s cap, standing straight and saluting in the mirror. It had been packed away in plastic with some care, and although it was large for her, her silhouette made Robin gasp. Cheryl, still silly over the pictures, swung around and barked, in her rough estimation of what a soldier might sound like, “What are you gaping at, girl? Stand at attention when I’m talking to you!”

  And that caused another, much more disturbing reaction. Robin flushed and tried to cover it by laughing. She excused herself not much later, saying that she had work to do, and went home feeling nauseated and dizzy. And moist between her legs.

  I’m not only perverted, she thought, holding her pen above the journal page, not daring to write. But I’m a lesbian. That’s impossible. Lesbians love women. They’re feminists. Feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice, wasn’t that what someone said? How could I possibly ever tell a woman that I loved her when she’d recoil from me in horror if she knew what I was really like?

  I will certainly never find a true lover, she finally wrote, a new pain growing in her chest. I am even an outsider among outsiders.

  * * * *

  Of course, nothing was ever that easy. Her late night and midday fantasies, now bolstered with a much more complete understanding of how her body worked and what it needed for release, did not suddenly cease to have male characters in them. And as she found herself looking at classmates and people on the street, or even at movie and rock stars, she realized that she could be attracted to men or women. This did nothing to help things, but only complicated them to such a ludicrous degree that she managed to avoid dating as much as humanly possible, looking for events that required group participation and hobbies that didn’t allow her time on the weekends. She became involved with school plays and newspapers and student councils. And then she turned her attention to college.

  “She’ll be a teacher,” her father assured friends. “She’s always reading, and she loves libraries and schools. We’re gonna have a teacher in this family real soon.”

  “Definitely a lawyer,” her mother confided to her friends. “So bright! All these awards! And she’s so political! Who knows? Maybe one day she’ll be the governor. She’s going to go out and change things, that’s for sure!”

  “I want to be an art buyer,” Robin told her college counselor. “I know I’m no artist, but I want to work for museums or galleries or auction or restoration houses. What do I have to do to get the right training?”

  Her confused and slightly miffed parents wanted her to go locally, and there were certainly plenty of quality schools nearby. But she negotiated a scholarship to one far away, where she could live on campus and be part of a new community. She also wanted one within easy distance of a major city. It was important to her that she be separated from her family, because whatever happened, whether she gave in to these fantasies or not, there was no way she was going to want to come home and sleep in her nice single bed with the pink coverlet.

  If I’m going to be a pervert, she wrote at last, just before packing her jou
rnals, at least it’ll be where no one knows me.

  And, was her less conscious thought, as she packed up to head east, where there might be more people who are like me.

  * * * *

  “So what’s the deal with you and Greg?” Donna asked, combing her fingers through her long blonde hair. She flipped a few strands over her forehead, where they would fall in that sweet, slightly stylish way that drove some of the young men to distraction. She smiled at the effect, knowing how it looked. “Are you guys going out or what?”

  “It... didn’t really work out,” Robin answered. She had a textbook open in front of her, and she was making notes on a yellow pad.

  “Aww, too bad. He was cute, too. But what was it? Was he, like, all dick and no brain?” Donna cocked her head and rolled her eyes. “Du-uh, wanna pizza? Wanna watch me sweat with a buncha other guys? Wanna fuck, baybee?”

  Robin giggled. Donna was just too funny sometimes. “I guess you could say it had something to do with his intelligence. Or at least his imagination.”

  “Oh yeah, ain’t it the truth? Like some of these guys think that foreplay is when they squeeze your tits a little first. And where do they get this?” She raised her hands and made pinching movements with her fingers. “I mean, did you ever have a guy just grab your nips and twist them around like knobs on an old radio? It’s like, who taught you how to make love, the TV repairman?” She snorted and checked her hair one last time.

  Robin was so used to being flooded by these feelings that she didn’t do more than raise an eyebrow at Donna’s mimicry. But under her sweatshirt, her nipples ached for someone to grab them and yes, squeeze them and twist them around. Well, thank goodness Donna was going out. There was always the box under the bed.

  “It’s too bad you don’t have a guy, though. Ramon says he’s got extra tickets to the game tomorrow, and we could’a gone together. You can still come if you want to.”

  “No thanks, Doni, I’ve seen enough games for a while.” Robin tapped the book. “And I have to finish my research for this paper, anyway. But say hello to Ramon for me, and tell him thanks for those magazines. They really came in handy.”

  Like Robin, Donna’s boyfriend was taking a series of courses in art. He had seen Robin’s books on pre-Columbian paintings and mentioned that his parents had a series of magazines that had some great color illustrations and photographs, would she like to see them? He seemed to treat her like a younger sister, which was fine with her and just peachy to Donna. Especially since Ramon was a sexy hunk of manhood who spoke three languages and came from money.

  “He’s perfect for me,” Donna often said. “Older, smarter, richer, and utterly fascinated by my big tits. Latin men, you know. Give ’em blonde hair and big tits, and they’re all yours.” Certainly Ramon did nothing to disprove her theory.

  “Yeah, I’ll say hello,” Donna said as she got up to go. “And don’t be such a nun, OK? Get out and do something. It’s Friday fucking night. Go out and get blasted or something. Meet some guy on the track team, they’re more intellectual than the ball players. I got safes in the basket, help yourself. And I shouldn’t be back until two or three!”

  “I’ll consider your advice,” Robin promised with a wave. But as she eyed the garish woven basket that held Donna’s endless supply of colorful prophylactics, she only sighed. She never wanted to see one again. Especially not in the hands of a jock.

  But an hour later, as the silence in the room grew oppressive, Robin finally closed the books and stretched. With a cool deliberation, she closed the curtains and locked the door. And pulled the box out from under her bed.

  The box. It was a rectangular cardboard box about twenty inches long and five inches deep, designed to be used as storage. It came to school packed with her journals. Now, there was only one volume in it, her current one. The rest of the space was taken up by her slowly growing collection of toys and books and magazines. She took them out with a ritual slowness, touching them and laying them out so she could decide what to do.

  First, the two tabloid newspapers, with garish, horribly drawn caricatures of women in bondage on the cover. She had purchased them when her train passed through the city, along with several of the books underneath them. The only woman in a dimly lit store inside a huge bus and train terminal, she had hurriedly made her selections and paid for them as sweat broke down the middle of her back. She had been positive that every man in the place was watching her and that everyone on the train she later boarded would look at her with disgust if they knew what was in that stapled brown bag.

  She had purchased the two papers and two softcover books. One was about a woman who trained men to be her slaves, the other about group of men who abducted and tormented young girls, who invariably grew to love it. Robin knew that the stories were shoddy, the writing awful, the sexism unbearable.

  But they made her hot. They got her so wet that she couldn’t stand it. Filled with more shame, she had written to the companies and gotten their catalogs and ordered more. And their arrival made her even more humiliated; held captive by her own twisted libido.

  That was when she had just gotten to school, though. She wasn’t that bad about these things any more. Now, she just accepted her fantasies for what they were, and indulged herself as needed.

  Like right now. The books she stacked to one side, leaving her current favorites on the bottom of the pile. Then, she took out the collar.

  It was a normal dog collar, purchased with a load of munchies at a local supermarket. But as she put it on, she felt a new rush of heat flooding through her. It felt so right.

  Carefully, she piled pillows on her bed to make support for her shoulders. She undressed slowly, her eyes closed, hearing a voice whisper the commands to her. When she was nude except for the collar, she opened her eyes to look at herself in the mirror across the room. This always served to excite her more. Her curly hair cascaded around her shoulders, and her fit body seemed so pale. The collar stood out sharply, defining her. I am a slave, she mouthed silently. I am your slave.

  She put the box on her nightstand, pushing the clock out of the way, and eased back into the bed. For about a half hour, she read through the newspapers, with their fake letters and fake stories. She read everything, from the token editorial to the ads for professional mistresses, and everything went straight to her loins. This was a world made of her fantasies.

  She spent time trying to imagine what it would be like to visit a professional. How she would go there, what she would say? Would the woman be tall and thin? Would she be powerful, and stately? Would she wear these clothes, like in the magazine pictures, the corsets and the stockings, the high boots and long whips?

  Carefully, Robin reached over to the box, not looking at it. This was to add a touch of unpredictability to the session. She pulled out the first thing she touched, and sighed as she trailed it cross her body. It was a plain pair of clothespins, which she had tied together with a leather shoelace. She had gotten the idea from one of the magazines. She pinched one nipple and slipped the jaws of the pin around the base, sighing when it was on. The other went on easily, and she let a low moan issue from between her lips.

  The newspapers fell to the floor as she shifted to get her next toy. It didn’t matter; their part in her ritual was over. Now, she looked specifically for the heavy piece of black silk she used as a blindfold, and she tied it around her eyes. Now, with her hands and the power of her imagination, she could truly pleasure herself.

  Running her hands quickly over her body, she imagined someone examining her. Their hands would be cool, hard and impersonal, stroking her to catch her reactions, pinching and squeezing to test firmness. She gathered the leather string between the clothespins and put it in her teeth, so she could pull on them by jerking her chin back. The sensation was doubly thrilling, since the thong tasted salty and rough and the hands-free movement of the pins made it easy to imagine foreign fingers manipulating them.

  She spread her legs apart with both hands
on her thighs, one leg going off the side of the bed. It made her feel wide open. One, two quick, hard pinches on the lips of her sex, and she knew that she was already more than prepared for coming. But it would be a while longer before she permitted herself that release.

  With a deliberate slowness, she stroked the insides of her thighs and her belly. She cupped her breasts, brushing her fingers alongside her nipples, tapping the clothespins. She didn’t have a pattern. In fact, she tried to vary her actions as much as possible. Sometimes, she would reach up and twist the pins sharply, so that she couldn’t help but gasp.

  Finally, she let the pins go, and carefully pulled them open and off, hissing through her teeth as blood rushed back to her nipples. Then, she slipped the blindfold off, and reached over the side of the bed and picked up the book on top of the pile. She scanned it quickly, stopping at favorite passages and folded over pages, and read about the things that made her breath quicken and her clit thrum like a guitar string. But she didn’t touch herself; no, not yet. With a growing impatience mixed with her need to make it last as long as possible, she picked up, read through, and tossed aside each of the books.

  Scenes played themselves out in her mind; leather cuffs around her wrists and ankles, a heavy black whip in a gloved hand. Bending, bowing, lapping her tongue across smooth leather. A slap across her face, angry words thrown at her in contempt. Rough hands squeezing her breasts, long, slender, cool fingers with gleaming red nails cruelly pinching her nipples. A hand pulling her head back, forcing her mouth open, thrusting into her with passion and fury! Her own mouth pulled down, buried in another women’s cunt, commanded to please, worked until she gasped, and then pulled back for more. Hands, many hands, upon her body, pulling apart her ass cheeks, preparing her for another violation....