It's six pm and I can hear the front door opening. It's all I can do not to crawl out to meet him.
I grit my teeth as I sit on the bed. I'm dressed in a bulky hoodie and sweatpants; partly to deal with the cold and partly because if I wore anything less I would be more tempted to go out there. What I want to wear is nothing; what I want to do is walk through my bedroom door and ask him if he wants me to do something. Anything.
But I promised myself this time that I won't do that. That I won't open the door, won't step outside this room, won't even undo the lock. Not if he calls out to me; not if he tries to open it himself; not if he orders me to get up and unlock the door and let him in and strip down and spread my legs...
Fuck. Fuck. Thirty seconds in and already this is tough. I spent all day and all night promising myself that I would be strong; that today would be different; that this was the day that I would reverse the long, slow, insidious process of slavery that had slowly devoured the lives of me and my friend.
It's six-oh-one and I try to distract myself by thinking about how this all began.
***
Daniel was so normal. No, normal isn't the right word. Plain. Normal looks, normal height and weight. A little on the short side but not excessively so. A minor technical job doing something with computers- not a tech-bro but not a data entry drone either. Face that wasn't excessively ugly but wasn't particularly attractive. He seemed tailor made to fade into the background.
He started dating Sandra just a few weeks ago-
A few weeks? Really, only a few weeks? It feels like an eternity. It feels like a different era of history. It feels like a vanished time, before I knew what I now know. It feels impossibly lost.
Anyway. She talked about a new guy at work that she'd started to see. I looked him up on social media and remembering asking her- what was the big deal? He wasn't successful, he wasn't handsome, he didn't seem particularly dynamic. Was it something else, something subtle that social media couldn't show? Was he kind? Funny? Sweet and interesting in a way that a handful of posts about his trip to Scotland didn't indicate?
Sandra paused, her dark hair falling down her shoulders in a way that sometimes made me jealous.
"He's commanding," is what she said, the faintest blush appearing on her face.
I didn't understand what she meant then. I do now.
***
It's six-oh-two and I can hear his bag as it thumps on the floor. I'm not there to ask him if he wants me to put it away and the knowledge that I missed my opportunity twists my stomach. I strain my ears to listen to him as he moves about the room. What will he do? Will he break his promise? Will he come for me?
My muscles tense, my breath comes out in short, desperate pants.
Remember yourself,
I whisper into my mind.
Remember that you don't belong to him. You don't belong to him. You don't. You don't.
The most frightening thing is how badly I want- I need- it not to be true.
***
He came over a week after she started to see him. He was...he was nice enough, I guess. Polite. Kind.
Normal.
We talked about how I'd known Sandra since forever; how we were both attending the same university. He nodded thoughtfully while Sandra hovered in the background, as though waiting for something.
I found out why in a little while when, apparently satisfied with his talk with me, he turned to her and told her to go get some snacks.
Not asked her. Told her.
Sandra's face lit up like he'd offered her a bouquet of flowers. She turned and ran off to fetch him some of the nibbles she'd prepared earlier, grinning from ear to ear. As she handed him a bowl of dip she shivered.
It was the first time I saw him give him one of his special orders. It was nowhere near the last.
***
Six-oh-five and I think he's not coming to force his way into my room. The disappointment comes in waves that threaten to make me burst into tears like a six-year-old denied her dessert; like a teenager being stood up for the first time in her life. I want to cry. I want to unlock the bedroom door. I stay where I am and I take deep breaths.
***
He'd do it all throughout the night. Small things, innocuous things. He'd tell her to go and fetch herself a beer. Come and sit next to him. Pick up that glass and put it in the sink. Go here. Fetch this. Do that. Tell me this.
The weird thing was that he wasn't particularly arrogant about it. I'd known guys who were pushy and there was always an aura about them. Arrogant. Smug. The sort of person who enjoyed getting others to do what they wanted, the sort of person who made it into an ego trip. Bullies. Daniel didn't act like a bully. He didn't seem to be doing it out of a need to proclaim his authority. He wasn't demanding or forceful. At least not overtly. No, he just gave out orders like they were the most normal thing in the world, in the same calm and patient tone someone might state a familiar fact, and Sandra obeyed them with a smile- more than a smile. With relish. With joy. With
pleasure.
He always thanked her afterwards. Sometimes he'd pet her head.
***
Six-oh-nine and I have dealt with the soul crushing knowledge that he will not be coming to my room in the immediate future. I am a woman wandering the desert who strays away from water; I am a famine victim throwing away my last meal; I am a junkie huddled, desperate and clawing, in a corner of the room, away from the needle full of the promise of bliss lying atop the nearby table. Between my legs there is an ache that is monstrous and raw and terrifying in its appetites.
***
He spent the night. It was obvious halfway through that he was going to spend the night. Sandra was all over him, pressing her boobs against his arm and whispering in his ear while I looked on with amused confusion. In the end he simply stood up, said goodnight to me and then told Sandra to go to her bedroom and take off her clothes in the same calm, polite tone of voice he used telling her to sit down next to him.
She leapt to obey, practically running to her room. A little while later I heard muffled voices through the walls; then feminine moans, loud and constant and shameless. I remember laughing- so
that's
what she sees in him.
***
Six-eleven. I ache, I hunger and a soft, insidious voice in my head reminds me that it is a hunger that I can sate so very easily indeed. I ache and it is a torture I can end in an instant. I ache and it is an ache for orders, for commands, for leadership. I ache to be used and I do not care how he does it so long as he uses me.
There are noises outside. I feel a surge of horror and expectation both; he is coming! But no. I hear the murmur of a feminine voice. Sandra. She's gone to him. She's walked out of her room to be with him. He's going to be busy with her. He's not going to come to my room anytime soon.
The knowledge fills me with a terrible sense of loss. I whimper and curl up on the bed, shuddering as my body fights my mind for control of my soul.
***
Three weeks of this. Of him coming over to our place or her going over to his place; she was either not there or with him. When he was there she burned with energy, with passion, with a lust so intense and blatant that I was at first puzzled and then alarmed. On the occasions he wasn't over she would lie about in the bare minimum of clothes, staring aimlessly out the window. When she was with him she followed him around like a lovesick puppy, waiting on baited breath for his orders. Go and get started on dinner. Go and make us both coffees for breakfast. Go to your room and strip down. Go to your room and touch yourself.
I listened in, once. Out of concern and a strange and morbid curiosity. I heard something like chanting. I opened the door just a crack. He was sitting on a chair by her desk. She lay on the bed, her legs spread open, hands between her legs. Masturbating for him. He just sat there and watched with a smile on his face. And all the time she was whispering, "I want to obey. I want to obey. I want to obey..."
***
Six-fifteen and I writhe on the bed, legs clamped together to stop my fingers from thrusting down into my cunt, I contemplate how clever he is. People claim that reason drives men and women to achieve great things. It is not reason. It is pleasure and fear and greed and hunger and lust. These are the great engines of our species; why we build great monuments and engage in terrible wars and sleep next to the monsters that devour us. Why we do everything that we do. Intellect, memory, reason, skill and cleverness and mere devices used by clever apes to fulfill needs as ancient and as primal of the earth itself. Sleep. Fight. Eat. Fuck. Belong. Obey.
I want to obey, I want to obey, I want to obey...
***
Her grades dropped. I raised the issue with her and she just shrugged me off, annoyed that I was bothering her with tedious things like her academic opportunities and future career prospects. So I yelled at Daniel. Told him it was his fault that she was acting like this; his fault if she got kicked out of her course. He told me he'd talk to her about it. That he would tell her to focus more on her studies.
The next day I found her sitting naked at her desk, eyes locked on a textbook, one hand between her legs. That's when I got really scared.
***
Six eighteen. So hot. So hot. My skin is aflame with need. I'm pushing off my hoodie, throwing it onto the floor. My sweatpants go next. This can't be real. I'm hot, too hot for clothes, too hot for underwear, too hot for disobedience, too hot for denial. This can't be real. I must be sick. Psychological conditioning can't bring about these sorts of changes. It can't have this much influence. Can it?
Of course it can. I'm changed. Changed for good. Built for obedience, now. So why am I pretending otherwise?
***
It was after I got angry at him that he started to pay attention to me. By which I mean that he started to order me around.
At first I laughed at him. Sneered. I wasn't like my sad, subby friend; I wasn't the sort of girl that would just drop what she was doing and scurry around to do whatever he wanted. So when he told me to go and bring him his bag, I told him to go to hell.
I expected him to get angry or repeat himself. He didn't do any of those things. He just smiled like we'd shared a joke together. He even apologized in a way that seemed sincere.
I sneered back at him, confident in my victory over him. And it was a victory. Just a brief one.
***
