I awoke with the late-morning sun streaming into my windows, my sheets damp with sweat. My body was still tired and sore from the exertions of the previous night, but I felt strangely refreshed. I wondered how I would deal with the consequences of my actions the night before - how I would face the friends who had forced me to kneel at their feet and seen me lick the boots of my mistress - but the light of the new day gave me the optimism that everything would be better. I stretched, running my hands over thighs and belly and breasts, luxuriating in the feel of my body. I knew I had sexual needs whose depths I had never before suspected, but that gave me a curious feeling of pleasure and satisfaction, knowing I could indulge those needs when I chose.
Then my fingers encountered the band of steel locked around my neck, and I remembered that neither Cristina nor Stefan had ever removed my collar. The weight of the inflexible collar, which I had grown so accustomed to the night before, felt strange and frightening in the light of day and the softness of my bed. I put my hands to the collar and tried to pull it open, to no avail. I felt carefully around the outside and inside of the collar for a latch, but found only a narrow seam with a small keyhole next to it. I jumped up and ran to look in the bathroom mirror. To my dismay, I saw that it was securely, immovably locked on me. I made a few efforts to pick the lock with a hairpin, but failed miserably in my attempts. My heart began to race. How could I go out with the symbol of my submission locked about my neck for all to see? What did it mean that they had left the collar on me? Would I ever be free of it? But then I began to calm down. Of course it had been a simple oversight. Cristina had amused herself with treating me as a slave at the club, but she could not possibly want to be bothered with a slave all the time. I would just call her, ask her to come over to unlock the collar, and everything would be as before.
Happy with my self-reassurances, I turned on the water and stepped into the shower. Luxuriating in the hot water, I considered my body in a new light. I had always thought myself pretty, but had never given serious thought to how men - or women - might evaluate my naked body as a source of sexual pleasure. I smiled. It might have been my first time, but I was sure that at least some men had found me of interest as a sexual object. I was still deeply humiliated by Stefan's outright refusal to take advantage of my shamelessly offered charms, but surely few men could have turned down the opportunity I had presented. I supposed I was lucky that he was one of them. I wondered how I would feel now if I had truly been help from behind and brutally, forcibly taken, perhaps over and over, of if I had felt and tasted the seed of multiple men on my tongue.
I turned off the water, toweled myself off, and picked up the phone to call Cristina. Suddenly I was overcome with doubt. What would she say to me? Would she still treat me as her slave and demand my unquestioning obedience? Had she lost all respect for me? Could she only see me as the soft, helpless, willing slut I had played last night?
But there was nothing else to do, short of calling locksmith to pick the lock on my collar. I dialed her number and waited, not breathing. She picked up the phone. "Hallo?"
"Hi, Cristina, this is Jenny."
"Oh, hi, Jenny," she said enthusiastically, "how are you feeling today?"
"Great," I said, not sure how she would take that. "I mean, last night was quite an experience."
"You really seemed to be enjoying yourself," Cristina asked innocently.
I wasn't sure how I should answer that one - I couldn't deny it, but I needed to appear the confident, free-spirited person I tried to be. I settled on "Yes, it was very interesting to play that role. Thanks for letting me try it out."
"You seemed to take to it very naturally," she answered. "Stefan said you took it very seriously."
So she knew. She seemed to be giving me the benefit of the doubt, at least. I decided to drop the subject.
"Anyway, you forgot to give Stefan the key to my collar. Can you come over here and unlock it for me? It's a little embarrassing," I said. Now that was an understatement. Less than a visible sign that actually would not have been terribly remarkable in certain districts of Berlin, it was more a constant reminder of the slave girl who had so comfortably inhabited my body the night before, and who lay just below the surface of my current demeanor.
"Well, I'm terribly busy today, and I don't really have time to come over to your neighborhood," Cristina said. "Why don't you meet me on my way?" she asked. "I'm going to be in Prenzlauer Berg around lunchtime and we can meet at the caf . Say at 1:30."
"OK," I said, not wanting to admit my embarrassment. "I'll see you then."
"Great," she answered. "See you."
I spent the next couple hours puttering around my apartment, trying unsuccessfully not to think about my upcoming encounter with Cristina. Our relationship had seemed quite normal during the call, except for the scarcely-hidden implications of her casual remarks. Did she think I was a natural slave? What did she think of the fact that I had shamelessly offered my body to Stefan, pleading on my knees like a slut? I imagined her forcing me to strip off my clothes at an outdoor table and kneel at her feet, occupying my tongue with the work of cleaning the dust off her boots. But I knew I had no choice. I would have to confront her at some point.
I decided to dress in as un-slave-like a fashion as possible. I put on jeans, a T-shirt from a 10K I had run a few months before, and a UCLA sweatshirt, wrapped a dark silk scarf as best I could around the steel collar, and pulled my hair back into a ponytail. I wore no makeup at all. Looking in the mirror, apart from the somewhat incongruous silk scarf, I saw a completely normal, well-adjusted college student. Steeling my resolve, I left the apartment and got on the U-bahn for Prenzlauer Berg.
When I got to the caf , Cristina was already seated at an outdoor table, casually sipping a cappuccino and looking over what looked like photographs. As I approached, she put them back in a large envelope, rose, and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. "Hello, my little slave," she said with a wink and a smile, as if it were all pleasant joke among friends.
"Hello, mistress," I tried to say with the same casual air. She indicated a seat to me and I took it.
"I had a really good time last night," Cristina began. "I trust you did, too?"
I responded with the line I had worked on in the subway on the way over. "Yes, I did. I've always liked trying new things, and this was definitely new. I'm not sure I would do it again, but I'm glad I did it."
"I think you liked it a bit more than that," Cristina said with a knowing smile. "I'm not sure I've ever seen a girl as heated as you were bound to that table. Although that was probably nothing compared to when Stefan took you home." There was silence. Luckily, Cristina changed the subject. "Hey, look at these," she said, pushing the envelope toward me.