Beth is one of the ten finalists chosen for the year long cruise and heads to New York for the competition to be chosen. She begins making new friends. This chapter contains scenes of lesbian sex, masturbation, public sex, and oral sex. COVID-19 and STD's are not a problem in this fantasy world.
My Journey of Discovery, Ch 11 - My Final Days of Freedom
The next morning, I made an appointment with Doctor Kline for that afternoon at four PM, his final office appointment. It was easy to get; no other student would be making an appointment that late on a Friday. I spent the rest of the day filling out my application for the unknown Master. I'd managed to work in a lot of submissive experience in two weeks, but I was honest and told them all my experience had been recent. Honesty was valued by Dominants. I tried to be somewhat flirty and droll with my answers since I didn't feel I had much else to offer. I hoped he recognized the intelligence behind the answers and didn't think I was a dumb bimbo.
I even identified my primary purpose in requesting consideration; that I was researching submission for my Doctorate and would like to have time to work on my thesis during the cruise if I was chosen.
The application required a photo. I didn't want nude photos of me floating around God knows where, so I put on a brief bikini I wouldn't be afraid of being seen at the beach in. I brushed my hair, added lipstick and mascara, but otherwise skipped the makeup. If I did get selected, it wouldn't be for my looks anyway. I was sure he'd have lots of beauties willing to apply for the position. I put my camera on a stand, adjusted the focus on a droopy ficus plant in the corner, set it for a ten second delay and stood next to the ficus. Removing the memory card, I downloaded the picture and printed it on photo stock and inserted it in the packet with the questionnaire.
I Fedexed the entire package to arrive tomorrow and from now on, all I could do was wait.
Meeting with Dr. Kline at four, I told him a little about my experiences as a submissive, skipping the details which were far too prurient for him. He was still surprised I'd done so much, and the kinds of things I'd done. I think I helped him understand by not being in the least apologetic about it, treating it as not big a deal.
A lot of college students experimented with their sexuality in school, once away from their parents or guardians, and I was no different, except I had a method to my madness. Convincing him I was still interested in doing the research and it would either be as I'd planned, on the year long cruise, or the old fashioned way. I'd made plenty of contacts already, and could easily find more; enough to do the work.
Kline tried to dissuade me as I knew he would. He cared for me too much to think I wasn't doing something foolishly dangerous, and perhaps he was right. I took pains to tell him what I'd planned to ensure my safety. Providing an itinerary of where I'd be going to him and Theresa Layton, sending weekly reports back, including most of my research so I wouldn't lose it all in case my computer died. I told him if I ever disappeared, I'd soon have a former Army Ranger searching high and low for me, who wouldn't stop until he found me, dead or alive, and retribution would soon follow to anyone who'd harmed me.
"Really?" Professor Kline asked.
"I grew very close to these people in a very short time. Mrs. Layton would have a conniption if anything happened to me. Her submissive, Jeremy, is a former Ranger and current fire fighter who would move heaven and earth to find me if she wished it. I'd feel sorry for whoever chose to harm me."
"An ex-Ranger and fireman is a submissive," he said.
"Oh, yes. I've already learned age, income, race, gender, occupation, and life experience has very little to do with whether or not you are Dominant or submissive. While it helps to have money if you intend to keep submissives who you don't want to work, Mrs. Layton told me about one who lived in a ratty trailer in a shitty trailer park and other Dominants would use him to train their submissives he was so effective. I've met lawyer submissives and I've heard of ones in law enforcement. I've yet to find any one particular variable to fully explain submissive behavior. I was surprised I fell into it so readily, to the point I was reluctant to abandon my Mistress, despite having no previous inclination towards women."
"Do you think it's some form of Stockholm syndrome?"
"While it would help explain the attachment I felt, it doesn't explain why one is submissive in the first place. The rules used by most practitioners of D/s are designed by their very nature to protect both parties involved and since the submissive has a safe word that should be all powerful for most people, one might even say that even though the submissive is surrendering power and will to the Dominant, they have the ultimate power to make it stop. Does this mean they have the most power in the relationship, only excepting what they ceded to their Dominant? Obviously, I have a lot more to study in this area, which is why I'm determined to follow through with it."
"I'll reluctantly agree to the nature of your thesis, though I certainly wish you weren't exploring it yourself."
"I understand, Professor Kline. I do promise to be careful if I'm chosen. Please keep any research I send you. If I need it, I'll be in touch with you to retrieve it."
I stood up and he wanted to shake my hand. Instead I hugged him.
"I've enjoyed having you as an advisor. I'll make you proud of me and my work. Please, give my regards to Mrs. Kline."
"I will."
"By the way, for your information only; Mrs. Layton so much enjoyed the experience of having a female submissive, she's accepted a new slave for a trial period of thirty days. Gloria Sanders, the 100 meter track star, took her collar yesterday."
I left him with a dumbfounded expression on his face.
******
No matter how I would end up doing my research, I needed to develop a standardized questionnaire for the submissives I intended to interview. For the next week, I went over all the questions and answers I'd already asked randomly and developed a set of questions whose answers might give me the information I sought. I gathered the questions from anywhere I could find, standardized personality profiles, intelligence tests, questions from other research into other fields. I thought of different ways to ask the questions, which might eliminate bias from the study.
Some questionnaires introduced bias purposefully. Typical political questionnaires were a prime example. They never asked questions to see what you thought about a particular subject; they asked questions to reinforce a bias you already had. Both political parties were guilty. They'd send the survey to registered political party affiliates, cater to your bias and asked for money for the political candidate it was supporting. They never got what could be considered valid feedback.
An example would be something like "Do you believe in a strong national defense - yes or no". As if anyone was against the concept of a strong national defense. But they didn't outline what they thought were the means to a strong national defense, or what you thought would be a sufficiently strong national defense, or how much money the country should spend on national defense. At the most, they might ask something like "Do you believe in candidate so and so's plan for a strong national defense?" Without ever telling you what so and so's plan was and how he was planning on paying for it. Political parties had the garbage survey down to a science. Real science couldn't be so sloppy.
The same might happen in my own survey if I wasn't careful. By asking questions in such a way as to make the behavior I wanted to study sound shameful or perverted, I might not ever get an honest answer. An extreme example would be something like this. "Do you think Dominants and submissives are perverts? Do you think all perverts should be locked up? Would you describe yourself as a Dominant or submissive?" Everyone would rush to give me an honest answer to those questions. NOT.
I even tried asking the same questions in different ways to see which way might be less biased than another. I had about a hundred different questions I mostly liked when I heard back on my submission response. I still didn't know who was behind the ad. All I had to go by was the original wording; Mature, dominant male seeks... So a man. Mature could mean anything from thirty to ninety, I supposed, if a ninety year old would be interested in dominating a twenty-five year old woman.
I was one of ten finalists who were being considered for the trip. I received round trip airline tickets to New York, arriving on the 17th, departing on the 20th, a limo to take me to the hotel, a reservation number to the Langham New York Fifth Avenue with instructions on checking in. It even contained a ticket to an opera at the Met on the 18th.
I'd never attended an opera, though I liked the music, so I looked forward to it. There was a check for a thousand dollars for miscellaneous expenses I might incur. I could rip up the check if I wasn't accepting the invitation. I was given a number to call if I'd changed my mind about accepting; a different number to call once I'd checked into the hotel. Further instructions to be provided if I called that number.
Looking up the Langham on Trip Advisor, I saw rooms went for $485 a night. Three nights there was another $1500, so whoever was doing this wasn't a piker. Of course, if he could take me on a year long cruise around the world on a luxury motor yacht, he had money. If the mystery man was doing this for all ten applicants, he was spending in the neighborhood of perhaps $50,000 for this venture, throwing in everything.
I was somewhat surprised I made it to the final ten. Despite all I'd done to add to my experience and sound like I wasn't a total neophyte submissive, I was both new to it and perhaps not even committed to submission, though I might be more committed than I originally believed. I'd responded to Mistress Layton's Dominance during my training much more than I expected.
Wondering if there had only been ten applicants or if they'd waded through hundreds or thousands to come up with ten. I imagined there would be a number who would have applied for the money or travel who wouldn't have given a fig whether or not they had to go naked, have sex, or submit to someone for it. I also wondered about the criteria they'd considered when choosing the final ten. What made my application memorable? All I could do was be myself.
Before I flew to New York, I had time to complete my survey, making it the best I could. Hopefully, it would tell me a lot about the people who took it. I took it myself, answering all the questions. I was my first subject. I tried to think about how I would have answered it before. Before I read the ad and decided to take this on. In the process, I realized that person no longer existed. There was only me, the person I was now.
I sent the information to Professor Kline and Helen Layton. If there was going to be a kidnapping, I suppose it didn't have to happen after I was chosen. Maybe they could get a ten for one deal. People who were already committing to be little more than sex slaves already. If taken and sold, perhaps we would easily disappear and take up our new lives in seraglios, harems or bordellos around the world, falling into submissive patterns easily, so we wouldn't fight.
I flew up on the 17th and a man holding up a sign with my name was waiting by baggage claim. He grabbed my luggage for me, put it in the trunk and drove me to the Langham. When I checked in, I was given a packet telling me I could dine in any of the hotel's restaurants or order room service and charge it to the room at no cost to myself. The hotel would provide driving service to The Met on the 18th. Essentially, unless I left the hotel, this trip wasn't going to cost me a penny, and I had a grand to ensure every eventuality was taken care of.
Calling the number I'd been given to call after I checked into the hotel, I reached a pleasant young woman.
"Hello Elizabeth. I'm so glad you decided to join us. You were one of the applicants of most interest to Mr. X. He was really hoping you'd take this opportunity to check it out."
"When do I find out the Mystery Man's name?"
"Only if you're one of the three finalists."
"Hey, I can understand a little bit of mystery, but I'm not going to agree to go on a year long cruise without knowing ahead of time who I'm going with."
"No, of course not. It would be irrational if you did. You may still refuse to go once you learn who it is. If you refuse to go, he'll go to his second choice, etc."
"By what you're saying, I could end up being his tenth choice."
"I suppose you're right, but he's never had to go beyond his second choice before."
"So he's done this before?"
"A few times, but this is the first time he's done it this way, putting ads in several different newspapers. He decided to try something different from his usual approach."
"Am I allowed to know your name?"
