It was time to do some homework. Some research. She’d breakfasted, and gone off to meet some friends. All decked out in some of her new gear. Jeans and a boob-tube top. She was going to an amateur basketball game somewhere, so he had Saturday morning all to himself. He opened up the Google page in his Netscape and typed “domme sub”. A whole host of webpage listings came up, and he starting surfing his way through. Almost all were sex sites. A few he bookmarked for more detailed analysis later. Then he tried again with “female domination”. Most of these were sex sites too, but some were political. Non-porn. High-brow, intellectual. Pushing a concept called “female supremacy”. He seemed to have stumbled upon a whole brand of feminism he didn’t know existed. He was familiar of course with some brands of feminism. His ex-wife’s brand could perhaps be labelled “firebrand”. And that was okay, more power to her. Though he didn’t know why it had to be called “feminism”. Due to his natural sense of fairness he already supported many of those values, but preferred to think of himself as a “humanist”. Certainly she and her friends would have crucified him if he’d started calling himself a “masculinist”! Back to the porn sites. Being the most light-weight of the material he’d unearthed, he’d be able to sift through those the quickest. Frankly, he found most of them quite ridiculous. Black leather, whips, thigh-high boots, snivelling men on leashes, tarted-up bitches with anger and spite in their faces. Images mainly created by men, for men, it seemed to him. Images reproduceable in the flesh by women of a taxonomic grouping known as “pro domme”, hawking “BDSM services” on homepages containing veiled references to “tribute”. Become my slave for life! Yeah, right. A life of one two-hour business transaction a month. Nope, sorry. Not his cup of tea. And as for the chat-rooms! The e-groups and their message boards! It was all “Mistress” this, and “Goddess” that. Capitalization of the “S” in every single “She”, the “H” in every “Her”, the “Y” in every “You”. Yards of humble, contrite verbiage. Acres of sycophantic clap-trap! They should all go get a life. No, wait a minute! Professionally speaking, he was well steeped in the concepts of market forces. How would he read the market for this kind of stuff? Obviously, there was big demand. The abundance of pro-domme services was testament to that. From the message boards, he saw that men who felt the way he was now feeling toward Janelle appeared to be quite common. Women who operated the way Janelle did, doing it for fun rather than profit, were far less common. She was the one in demand. He was part of a glut. Sobering stuff. And no need for him to be self- righteous. Anyway, on to the high-brow material. The serious treatises on “male submission” as a psychological phenomenon. The speculation about how much nicer the world would be if the President were female, along with the House majority and the Supreme Court. And not forgetting Her Holiness the Pope. To be sure, there’d be far fewer hands up altar boys’ vestments if that were the case! And much less sperm would be spilt in the Oval Office. Some of these “serious” pages were like training manuals. Wives! Use the power of your pussy to turn your husband from a slob to a free housemaid service! Husbands! Discover how much happier you’ll be, washing up the dishes with that chastity device clamped to your dick! Let her stop you cumming for six straight months, and you’ll find nirvana! Or else want to join Kurt Cobain. Mind you, he’d just let her deny him an orgasm for six straight hours of severe provocation, and he’d gone off like a rocket! It’d been well worth the wait. Worth it even more to see the way she’d reacted to his plight. She really got off on it. It pleased him to think he’d been the cause of that. The recollection of it was making him hard. Down, boy! There’s some serious thinking to do here! Only a very few, in fact only one or two, of the myriad sites touched any kind of a chord in him. Only a very precious few actually increased his understanding of what he might be going through. These were sites that purposefully avoided the words “Mistress” and “slave”. These terms had been nagging at him while reading over the other web pages, because he felt deep-down they implied a non-consensual relationship. Maybe even an abusive relationship. Slavery had been banned in the world for quite some time, and for good reason. Instead, the terms “Queen” and “knight” were used. A knight being a vassal, who had willingly pledged himself to her service. Who would suffer hardships to ensure her comfort, or defend her honour. The wicked dragon might singe his beard or even fry his ass, but he’d risk it if it pleased her that he do so. Ensure her comfort. Defend her honour. And by a simple extension of logic – provide her with block- buster orgasms. Whatever it took. Hardship, maybe. Even suffering. Selfless service. Queen, and knight. Yes, he was comfortable with that concept. Maybe this was the way he could best fit himself in to Janelle’s world? He wondered how she indeed saw herself. She’d spoken little on the subject so far. Just occasional hints, the odd revealing comment. Too busy getting her rocks off to worry about self-analysis, perhaps? She exuded so much self-confidence in who she was, and what she was. She definitely led from the front. She had the ideas, and so far they’d been good ones. But he wondered if she was really so experienced, so far ahead of him down this path. After all, she’d only had two others truly in her service prior to him. And one had been a disaster, for whatever reason. He suspected she was still finding herself. Still developing, still growing. It’d be fun trying to keep up with her! The front door opened, and clicked shut again. It was her. He’d given her a spare key so she could come and go. He quickly closed Netscape and came out from his study. She was flopped onto the sofa. “Hi! I’m back.” “Hello, Mistress” he addressed her solemnly. She looked at him quizzically. He got down on the floor before her, and sat at her feet. “Would Mistress like me to lick her toes?” He took one of her feet into his hands and attempted to slide her sports sock off. She placed her other foot squarely in the center of his chest and heaved. He flew backward, and ended up sprawled on the carpet. Her strength left him stunned. “What the fuck’s got into you?” she demanded. “I beg your forgiveness, Mistress!” he intoned. “How many days of chastity would be sufficient penance for this offence?” “Let’s get a couple of things straight! “My name is not Mistress, it’s Janelle! “And if ever I want my toes licked, I’ll fuckin’ ask for it!” “Okay. Got it.” She looked at him strangely for a few moments. “What brought this on all of a sudden?” “Just testing a couple of ideas.” Silence. Then accusingly – “You been surfing the Net, haven’t you?” “Guilty as charged.” “Oh, crap.” “Why? What’s wrong?” “You’ve been coming along so nicely! I’ve been so proud of you! Now you want to poison your mind with all that cyber shit?” “Just tryin’ to edu-ma-cate myself a lil’.” “Please. Leave your education to me. I’ve had so much trouble in the past, trying to undo the weird notions my lovers have picked up off the Net.” “Relax. I estimate about ninety-eight percent of what I saw was utter bullshit.” “You better show me the other two percent.” “Sure. It’s all bookmarked.” “Later. Have you had lunch yet?” “Not yet.” “I got us some stuff from the deli. Let’s eat.” He glanced at his watch. Almost two! He’d been net- surfing for about four hours. Didn’t seem that long. The boob-tube looked good on her. She had some kind of a thin waistcoat over it, to add a certain amount of decency. It was still possible to see how her boobs wobbled, though. And how her nipples formed bumps in the fabric. And how cute her bare brown belly was above the impossibly-low waistband of her jeans. She got plates out and served pasta salad, sliced ham and a few other goodies from clear plastic takeaway containers. “This is about the extent of my culinary ability” she remarked. “S’okay. You give good blow-jobs.” She let out a small guffaw at that comment. She looked so nice with her cute dark face all lit up in amusement like that. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Such a treasure. Such a queen. “How was the game?” “My cousin’s team stank. 85-53. Pitiful to watch.” “Do you play yourself?” “Nah, too short. I tried to play back in school, but I’d keep getting my face jammed up in somebody’s sweaty armpit.” “I play squash to stay in shape. But for spectating, baseball’s my game.” “I can watch baseball.” “We should take in a game sometime.” “Consider it a date!” Janelle scooped up the plates and cutlery, and carried them to the sink. “Hey!” he interjected. “Isn’t that my job?” “I don’t mind helping. I’m not totally useless around the house.” “Isn’t this so un-domme-like?” “There you go again. Too much internet bullshit. I can tell you, NOBODY keeps that stuff up twentyfour- seven.” She brought coffee, and sat at the table again. “I’ve never yet been around you twentyfour-seven. You’ll have to enlighten me.” She paused for thought, and took a deep breath. “I get moods. It’s like a craving. I want to see how far my man’ll go for me. What you’re willing to put up with for my sake. Seeing you do stuff you don’t wanna do, simply because I asked you to. It makes me so fuckin’ horny! “But if you volunteer to do something, like lick my toes – it’s not the same. I didn’t ask you for it, so there’s no sacrifice on your part. It’s a part of your fantasy, not mine! “I’m sorry, it’s hard to put this into words. I’m not that great with words.” He was silent, as he chewed over this new information. It seemed not inconsistent with his queen/knight scenario. In essence, it meant he’d better pull his head in a bit. “Topping from the bottom”, one website had complainingly put it. “And right now? Are you in the mood?” “Nope. But it’ll hit me again in a couple of days. And the longer I leave it, the worse it gets. It’s like withdrawl. “Meanwhile, you’ll just have to go tie up your own self.” He laughed at that thought. There was silence for a bit. Then she asked, “Did you really think that “Mistress” shit would get me going?” “I rather hoped not. Just flushing you out, really.” “You happy with my answer?” “Yeah. I am.” Just then the door buzzer sounded. He went and pressed the button next to the speaker. “Doug? It’s me,” a female voice crackled. Hurricane Julie. He pressed the entrance button to admit her. “Who is it?” Janelle asked. “My ex-wife.” Janelle snuck off to the kitchen and started washing up the lunchtime crockery, as he went to open the door. That Christine woman was with her. They made quite a contrast. Julie was slender, with boobs small and perky, and mousy-brown shoulder-length hair. Christine was a Jane Russell look-alike. A statuesque and bosomy brunette. Julie brushed her lips against his cheek in greeting. “Hi, how are you? Been okay?” If only she knew. “Yeah, fine. What’s up?” “Sorry for barging in like this. We’ve switched apartments and have a bit more space now. There’s some pictures and object-d’art here I want to take across.” “Such as?” Just then Julie caught sight of Janelle in the kitchen. “I didn’t know you’d hired a maid!” “I haven’t. This is Janelle.” Janelle aimed a look more lethal than a bazooka in Julie’s direction, then turned back to the sink. He hoped her grip on that coffee cup wouldn’t turn it to powder. Julie was enough of a socialite to glide smoothly along from any kind of gaffe like that. She turned back to Doug with a smirk. “Good to see you’re getting on with your life!” “What stuff are you here for?” She took him from room to room, pointing out various art treasures that she wanted lifted down and carried to the door. Five paintings, and a few knick-knacks. He packed the breakable stuff in a carton. Then the two of them went to and fro down the elevator to the parking level, taking several trips to get it all down and stowed in her car. He couldn’t care less. It was all stuff she’d chosen, not him. It’d been understood she’d be back for it when she was better settled elsewhere. Personally he’d rather look at posters of Nomo pitching for the Dodgers. They were back in about fifteen minutes and found Christine seated at the table with a cup of coffee, in conversation with Janelle. She fell silent when the two of them approached. “Chrissie? Shall we make a move?” Christine got to her feet and smiled warmly at Janelle, who did not return the gesture. “So nice to have met you. Ciao!” Doug closed the door behind them. “Fuckin’ bitch!” Janelle spat. “If she’d been closer I’d have decked her!” “She does tend to make assumptions.” “What about Miss Proud-of-her-tits? Where does she fit in?” “Oh, did I not mention? When my wife left me, it wasn’t for another man. It was for another woman.” “Ah. That explains it.” “What?” “Explains why she was coming on to me just now.” “You’re kidding!” “Nope. The vibes were pretty strong. Another three minutes alone together, and she’d have been asking me for my phone number.” “What would you have done if she did?” “I’ve done girls in the past, and won’t rule it out again in future. Right now, I got enough goin’ on as it is.” He was miffed. This was not the answer he’d been looking for. He’d wanted her to say there’d never be anyone else for her but him.