Submission

We were late to the academy every morning, but we never skipped that ritual between the sheets. Today, for the first time in weeks, he was the one spreading my legs.

I’m thirty-four and I never doubted what I was. Until that seed started growing inside me, silent and persistent, and I could no longer ignore it.

I felt his large body pressing against my back whenever the train braked, and when he whispered, “We’re getting off at the next stop,” I knew I wouldn’t be able to say no.

I’d been at the company three weeks when he leaned over the table and told me I had something that caught the eye. That afternoon I followed him.

When that man put his hands on my back, I knew it was no longer about the fever or the exhaustion from the trip, but about something I had been avoiding for years.

I had spent a year looking for someone willing to take complete control of me. The stranger’s email changed everything: she wanted my entire life.

He knocked expecting a routine exam. A stranger in a robe opened the door with a smile that promised trouble, and he knew that afternoon he wouldn’t be in charge.

—Tonight you don’t serve me with your hands —she said, lifting her skirt while I remained on my knees, waiting for the only order that truly mattered.

Her feet resting on the edge of my chair were only the beginning. That night, I discovered how far I was willing to go to please her.

I’m a patrician used to buying everything I desire. That afternoon I discovered there are men you don’t command: you obey them.

She told her grandfather she was leaving, but she never even exited the building: Sonia was waiting at the end of the hall with five unwashed old men and a promise that made her tremble.

For years I’d been stealing her flip-flops to get off with them. The afternoon she caught me on a ladder, she knew exactly how to use my secret.

The neighbors’ complaints didn’t scare her; they turned her on. In that elevator it smelled of beer and dirty man, and she was already on her knees before reaching the top floor.

It took only her catching me on my knees beside her bed for friendship to break and something else to begin: obeying every one of her whims without a word.

The first time she ordered me to paint my toenails, my hands shook. Not from fear: from wanting to obey her.

I'd kept that secret for years. All it took was a bottle of vodka and an old white flip-flop for her to take control and bring me to my knees.

When she grabbed my arm on the way out, I understood she wasn’t looking for an apology. She was looking for a slave, and I was already on my knees before she asked.

It was enough for her to look at my bare feet on the cold tiles to understand, before I did, what kind of man I could become if she ordered me to.

I went downstairs to the bathroom with a simple urge and found her there, soaped up and smiling, already knowing the order I was about to give her.

She took off her shoe in the car, slid her foot to my crotch, and whispered, “Is your first time going to be obeying me? Better for both of us.”