I'd been on the table for about an hour when I decided I should just relax. She was obviously going to keep me waiting awhile.
Lying face-up on Alex's kitchen table just as she'd instructed, I took a big breath, trying to settle down. I swallowed again. The wood of the table felt sticky on my back, and on the backs of my thighs. The backs of my knees pressed against the edge of the table, my calves hanging over. I tried to stop swinging my feet back and forth, but it was hard not to.
I balled my hands into fists again beneath my ass cheeks. This was how she wanted me. Face-up, naked on the table, knees at the edge, hands clenched into fists beneath my ass, holding it up slightly. Look straight up, Alex had said. Nowhere else. I watched a fly land on the ceiling again, then fly off, landing somewhere else.
I'd gotten used to being naked here, but lying on the table like this just felt weird. Naked. That's what we called it anyway. I still had this device over my cock, this clear plexiglass tube locked over it, the thing that never came off. I hoped it would come off today. My cock still showed through it, though it was totally off-limits. Alex called this naked.
It had been seven weeks. I'd been coming here every day for seven weeks. In that sense, today was no exception. But any other day I'd be stripping, then putting on my slave skirt, then serving. Serving Alex. Washing Alex's dishes, maybe, or ironing Alex's clothes, or mopping Alex's floor, but always, every single night, massaging Alex's feet. Always.
I rocked slightly to the right and quickly scratched an itch on my leg and as I did so, I could feel my skin peel away from the table before it stuck to it again. Where was Alex?
Just months ago she had still been my student. Spring semester, Freshman English. She always sat toward the front. That second week of classes, Monday morning, she had approached me.
"So Dr. Hyland, I saw you last night." She had a funny little smile.
"Last night? Where?"
"YOU know..." A big smile on her beautiful face, big lips and white teeth and pale skin framed by dark hair, that slightly upturned nose. I felt dizzy. "I KNOW it was you!..."
Oh god. There? I'd been at a relatively large BDSM gathering, a collection of regional munches, with lots of little workshops. Had my student, was her name Alex, maybe, had she seen me there?
"You saw me...saw me there?"
"Yep." A big smile. "I sure did!"
"Oh god."
"Don't freak out. I was there too."
"You were-"
"My boyfriend, he likes to get spanked sometimes. I was learning some tips."
"Oh. I...I uh..." I couldn't speak. This was embarrassing, and weird, and just wrong in some way. Holy shit Alex looked young. She was probably still eighteen.
"So umm like, Dr. Hyland, are you, like a dom or a sub?"
"Me? Oh well I uh..."
"No, no, don't tell me." Alex smiled at me knowingly. "You're definitely a sub. No doubt about it."
"Hmmm..."
How much should I tell this very young woman, my student? I was mortified that she'd seen me there, that she knew this about me, that she could read me like this.
"Anyway..."
I declined to answer her. I just shrugged, and gave her a helpless look.
Alex took her seat. Throughout class though, she just stared at me with a seriously intense look, her pale face and dark, shoulder-length hair, her intense blue eyes and wide upturned nose, wearing her hoodie and athletic pants. Alex's eyes never left me for a second. It was damn near creepy. I wondered if I was imagining the look, if I was over-reacting. Was this all coming from my awkward embarrassment, my self-conscious imagination?
As it turned out, it wasn't. The look was real. I knew as soon as I read one of Alex's assigned journal entries, late that night. I logged in to the assignment portal and clicked on her entry.
"She knew her English professor was attracted to her. But in class, she didn't fantasize about an ordinary romance with him. She imagined this man kneeling at her feet, giving himself to her, willing to do anything she demanded. The idea of it thrilled her."
Alex's journal posting went on to describe a college student, much like herself, fantasizing about her English professor, a man remarkably like me, submitting to her in a sort of owner-slave relationship. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe.
I just sat there, stunned, wondering what to do. I suddenly felt hot. My stomach turned itself into knots. I looked down at my hand; it was shaking. My entire body followed, shaking, almost convulsing in a sort of excited panic. What the hell had I stumbled into?
The entire evening, I didn't grade another thing. I just thought about Alex, and read her entry over and over and over. I looked at her student profile in the online directory, gazing at her picture as I read the story she'd written yet again. Finally, near dawn, I posted my response.
"What she didn't know was that her professor wanted nothing more than to kneel at her feet, in abject surrender, ready to obey. He wanted to be controlled. He wanted to hear her pretty youthful voice casually issue orders. He wanted to experience her possessiveness, her care for him expressed through her strict demands, her random cruelty. He wanted to be made to know his place."
I went on, continuing Alex's story. I never bothered to critique her writing, to give tips or make suggestions. I just continued the narrative, writing in character. Finishing up, I hit send before I could have second thoughts. Then I panicked. What in the hell had I done?
The next class, Alex was in her seat before I got to the room. As I walked in, she greeted me without smiling, arms crossed over her chest.
"Good morning Chris."
Chris? Not Dr. Hyland?
"Good morning, Alex."
She continued staring at me, briefly, unsmiling, then ran her right hand through her hair and looked down. A minute later, as I was organizing my papers, I looked up and saw Alex staring at me again, as if she were supervising. Class was weird. She kept staring, possessively. While all the other students filed out, she slowly put away her books, all the while staring hard at me while I fidgeted nervously. She then rose slowly, and walked out the door.
A day later, I read Alex's next journal entry.
"Oh, she knew. She knew exactly what her professor wanted."
The entry went on, becoming more specific and more explicit. It was also deadly accutate. Alex seemed to be able to read my mind, to decipher every shameful unspoken desire.
Over the entire semester, every one of Alex's entries, and every one of my responses continued the narrative. Together, we created the ongoing story of a professor enslaved by his student. She remained unflappable in class, sometimes smilng at me possessively, sometimes looking more serious. I got used to sweating nervously through class while she closely watched my every move. Alex called me "Chris," out loud, even in front of other students.
Nervously anticipating every new journal post, squirming in embarrassment, I felt the heat of her authoritative stare, class after class. Every minute in Alex's presence I felt watched, felt supervised, felt judged. I knew nothing would likely come of this, but through the pit-of-my-stomach nerves it was fun, or at least delightfully, erotically disturbing, our mutual fantasy.
The final week of class I nervously read Alex's last journal assignment.
"Within a week, she would no longer be his student, and the ethical rules that constrained him would no longer apply. She planned to confront her professor in his office the afternoon following the final. But was he actually serious? Was he just playing a game with her, or did he have the courage to live out his desires, to make them reality? She was excited to find out."
Oh god. What the hell was Alex planning, I wondered. Was she serious? There was only one way to find out. I would have been in my office anyway that afternoon. Until then I'd be a nervous wreck. I had no idea if this was just a flourish, or if she was actually planning to confront me. And if Alex did confront me, well, how would I go about telling her no, that this was every kind of inappropriate?
I should have never played along, I thought.
I enjoyed every minute of it though, regardless of how wrong it had been.
I'd been miserable, worried sick that someone would discover my unprofessional correspondence with a student.
I'd also felt more alive than I had in years.
The realization hit me, and I felt suddenly scared. I wasn't sure I would actually tell Alex "no." This whole situation felt out of my control, and I experienced a hard to describe sense of vulnerability, as if whatever was going to happen was fate, was destiny, and I neary cried at the thought.
On that eventful afternoon, I sat at my desk, trying to grade papers but unable to concentrate on anything. Late in the day, I heard Alex's voice outside my door, speaking to someone animatedly. She was chatting with another student in the hallway, about her summer plans. I held my breath.
Oh god oh fuck oh crap. Was all this for real? Was she here to do what I was half hoping and half dreading she would do?
Seconds later, Alex walked in the door wordlessly, a very serious look on her face. She closed the door behind her and locked it. Striding toward me, she jumped up onto the desk against the wall, sitting on it, on top of a few papers I was about to work on. The heels of her tennis shoes banged against the wood desk a few times. Alex looked at me, stared at me, unblinking.
