"Yes ma'am, I understand," Karie said to Mrs. Willcott over the phone. "I'll try my best. Goodbye."
Karie was a young assistant professor of History and Women's Studies at one of the top universities in the nation, but as she hung up the phone and leaned back in the comfortable chair in her office, the world in which she lived seemed different, as if a whole new perspective had come into view. She had just had a brief ten-minute conversation with Mrs. Willcott, the mother of one of her freshman students, Alissa Willcott. Karie knew that Alissa was a bright girl who was doing well in her History of Women 101 class, but otherwise Alissa hadn't really made much of an impact on Karie so far this semester.
By coincidence, it just so happened that Alissa was scheduled to visit Karie's office hours this afternoon. Karie would have to think fast; she might not have another chance to speak privately to Alissa for days, if not weeks. As she thought about her conversation with Mrs. Willcott and the impending meeting with Alissa, she lost herself in thought and fantasy, and her hand slipped down between her legs.
After a few minutes, a loud knock on the door jolted Karie back to reality. Surely Alissa wasn't here yet! No, it was probably her 2:30 appointment. "Come in?" Karie invited.
The door opened and the face of a homely girl peeked through. It wasn't Alissa. "Oh, I'm sorry, Emma," Karie said, pretending to have forgotten about her 2:30 meeting. "I'm not going to be able to meet with you today. Do you think you could come back tomorrow or Friday?"
Emma smiled and said, "Sure, professor, no problem." She ducked back out the door and shut it behind her.
Karie suspected that meeting with her professor was the last thing that Emma wanted to do. Any other day, Karie might have felt offended by how eagerly Emma left, but today Karie didn't care. She had more important things to worry about. Alissa was coming!
Karie got up from behind her desk and surveyed the small office. She thought that whatever she decided to do, she should try to make a definite impression on Alissa when the girl arrived. What better way to indicate the change in their relationship than by waiting for the girl on her knees? It seemed like a fine idea, and it made the tingle between her legs grow stronger. She took her place in the middle of the floor between her desk and the office door. The room was carpeted, but after a little while, Karie's knees began to ache. She found she enjoyed this submissive position, but even more than that she hoped Alissa would be on time.
Twenty minutes and two very sore knees later, Karie heard a knock at the door. This was it! "Come in!" Karie said.
The door opened and Alissa, a tall, thin, blonde-haired girl entered. Karie had noticed how attractive the girl was before, but now, from Karie's perspective on the floor, the girl seemed even more beautiful. "Welcome, my Lady!"
Alissa was a bit surprised to see her professor waiting for her on her knees, but not quite as surprised as Karie would have expected. "Oh no," Alissa groaned as she closed the door behind her, "don't tell me . . ."
"I had a conversation with your mother on the phone a little while ago," Karie was eager to explain. "She suggested that I show you a bit more . . . respect -- the kind of respect that a young woman in your social station deserves. Your mother made me realize that even though I'm the professor and you are the student, in other more important ways you are the superior, my Lady, and I am the inferior."
"I knew it!" the coed said, clearly unhappy. "God! I'll bet my mother has called all of my female professors. This is so embarrassing! Listen, Professor, you don't have to . . . do this." She gestured awkwardly at Karie as the woman continued to kneel. "I'm not any more 'superior' than anyone else! I'm just a normal college student!"
"But you're not! I admit that when you first started this semester, I didn't realize who you were. I had no idea that you were one of THE Willcotts. Why, your family could probably buy this entire university!"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Wealth means power, and your extraordinary wealth gives you extraordinary power, the power to do what you want whenever you want to whomever you want. It's your power that brings forth my own subservience, that urges me to kneel before you so I can serve and obey you, my Lady."
Alissa rolled her eyes. "But don't you find it humiliating? Isn't there some part of you that wants to stand up?"
Karie looked down and blushed slightly. "To be honest, my Lady, this is something that I have long fantasized about. Of course, I despise how our misogynistic, male-dominated culture objectifies women, but when it comes to women using and dominating other women . . . well, let's just say that the idea excites me. You have no idea how much scholarly work as been devoted to describing and detailing the debasement that women have suffered at the hands of men over the centuries, but very little research has been done to describe the power relations among women. It's an area of study which has become my field of expertise lately. What I've learned is that there have always been certain women -- certain very powerful and wealthy women -- who have been able to, shall we say, have their way with any person, including any other woman, that they wish. When I spoke to your mother, I realized that she was one of these women -- and someday, you will be too, my Lady."
"But I don't want to be like that, Professor! I keep telling my mother I just want to be normal, but she keeps trying to drag me in to her perverted lifestyle."
"You shouldn't be so resistant," Karie argued. "History has shown that there have always been two classes: the elite few and the subjugated many. With only so many resources in the world, we can't all live among the elite. There must be some people who go without -- or to think of it another way, some people are themselves resources, to be bought, sold, traded, and used. Look at me: I'm an intelligent, educated woman, yet I realize that despite my education, I'm not one of the elites. Therefore, I must be one of those who are on this earth to serve the elite class.
"For example," Karie said, at last getting up from her knees to go to the bookshelf, "there was a Roman empress who used to throw elaborate feasts for other noblewomen where they were attended only by their favorite slave girls. The ladies would enjoy the lavish meal, the very best food and wine that the empire had to offer, while the slave girls would feast on their ladies' pussies. There's another story of a secret society of wealthy, bisexual women in Nazi Germany who took Jewish women and used them as their personal sex slaves before their husbands, tragically, discovered what was going on and forced the women to ship the slaves off to extermination camps. Or -- ah! here's the book! -- there was a 15th century Bavarian princess who liked to treat her ladies-in-waiting like dogs. She liked to take them out to her father's private hunting grounds where they were sent to chase after another lady-in-waiting who was dressed as a fox -- here! there's a reproduction of a woodcut image of the scene . . ." Karie brought the book over to Alissa and showed the page to her student. The engraving showed a lady on horseback watching as half a dozen naked women in collars crawled after another naked woman who wore a fox's mask.
"That's sick!" Alissa declared. "My mother uses women like that, too, but I don't want any part of it!"
"Please, my Lady," Karie said, putting down the book and dropping to her knees once more. There was a growing desperation in her voice as she sensed she was losing Alissa. "Don't turn your back on the pleasure and privilege that is rightfully yours! Subject me to your discipline! Dominate me! Make me your slave!" Karie closed her eyes and leaned forward, trying to kiss Alissa's foot, but she found only empty air. She heard a door opening and opened her eyes just in time to see Alissa's feet walking out the door of the office.
Karie was disappointed, but she wasn't about to give up. She got up from the floor and returned to her desk, taking the book with the woodcut illustrations with her. She set the book on her desk and stared at the images of sexual debauchery, of domination and submission. As she began to caress herself through her clothing and masturbate, she knew this was what she wanted more than anything. One way or another, Karie was determined to make her fantasy come true.
***
"Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Willcott," Karie said as she entered the older woman's home office. "I know how busy you are." A week had passed since Karie and Alissa's meeting. Karie was dressed professionally, in a navy blue knee-length skirt, a white, short-sleeved blouse, and a brand new pair of heeled shoes. Her light brown hair was pulled back into a neat, simple ponytail, and she wore a modest amount of make-up. Mrs. Willcott thought the girl looked like she was interviewing for a job; she was even holding a slim portfolio folder.
"It's not a problem, Karie," Mrs. Willcott said from behind her desk. "I was actually thinking of calling you back, just to see how things were going between you and my daughter."
"I'm afraid I haven't been entirely successful, ma'am," Karie confessed. "I told her about our conversation, and I've tried to reason with her, to convince her what her role in society should be. I guess I just haven't been persuasive. I'm very sorry."
"Don't be so hard on yourself," the older woman said with a smile. "I'm sure you've tried your best. Alissa has been very stubborn lately. Even her older sister and I haven't been able to get through to her. I just don't know what we're going to do!"
"I promise I'll keep trying, Mrs. Willcott," Karie said. "In the meantime, it's the subject of our phone conversation the other day that is the reason for my visit."
"Oh?"
"Yes ma'am. I've hardly been able to think about anything else since we spoke. It's completely changed the way I think about the world now, especially my research."
"Your research?"
"Yes ma'am. As you know, I'm a history professor. My emphasis is women's history. I had been studying it from a feminist perspective -- looking at how women's lives have challenged the male patriarchal social structures even as their stories have been erased from the phallocentric historical chronicle."
"That sounds interesting," Mrs. Willcott lied. She actually never liked history and she was afraid this young woman was going to bore her to tears.
"It is, ma'am. However, our conversation the other day has altered some of my fundamental assumptions. In fact, in the last few days I've even written a paper on the subject which I hope to present at a conference -- as soon as I can get it accepted." She opened her portfolio and pulled out a thick document. She handed it across the desk to Mrs. Willcott. The title read, "'Dominate Me, Mistress': The Necessity of Slavery in a Post-Capitalist Feminist Society."
Perhaps I was wrong, Mrs. Willcott thought to herself. Maybe history isn't so bad after all.
"If you'll allow me to summarize the article, ma'am, my thesis is that the abolition of slavery in western society is an aberration which will soon be resolved. Marx, I believe, misinterpreted the philosopher Hegel when he predicted a future of constant progress, of increasing rights for the working classes. For most of human history, slavery as been the norm. It is only recently that western societies have abolished it. Thus, the abolition of slavery in history is the antithesis to the thesis of slavery. Eventually, perhaps quite soon, there will be a new synthesis: a society that will merge many of the new rights that women have gained with a reinvention of slavery as an acceptable reification of human labor."
Mrs. Willcott smiled. "So how do you envision this new era of slavery?"