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From: tigger@alices.com (Tigger)
Subject: ASSM: Story - By Any Other Name Part 1 of 2 (FemDom, Romance)
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By Any Other Name
by Tigger                          
Copyright 1998 - all rights reserved

Part 1.  Words of Power
     
Did you ever stop to consider the power that words, and in
particular, words used as labels, have on you as you grow up? 
I have, but that is mostly because of the impact three
particular words had on me.

The first two words may surprise you - man and boy; boy and
man.  Noah Webster will tell you that "man" refers to an adult
human male while "boy" refers to an immature human male.  Of
course, those are only the simplest and least threatening
connotations to those words.

I grew up in a small, rural town in the southern midwest - not
quite the Ozarks, but close.  My parents had four other
children, all boys, all older than me - the "runt of the
litter".  Two of my brothers earned big time college football
scholarships while the others enlisted in the Marines,
following dutifully in my father's World War II footsteps. 
All the males in my family are big, powerful, strapping
examples of masculine physical perfection.  Which I wasn't
back then and am not now.

That is not to say I am small or weak.  What I was, and still
am, is sort of average.  I'd already topped out at five feet
nine inches tall and one hundred and sixty pounds by the time
I had reached age sixteen.  Unfortunately, that left me more
than five inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter than the
next smallest of my siblings.  And while I was a fairly good
athlete (I won regional cross country titles in my junior and
senior years), I did not play *football*.

This failure to play a "real man's game" infuriated my Dad who
had gotten quite used to basking in the reflected glow of his
sons' gridiron glory.  He therefore embarked upon a "make a
man out of Jimmy" campaign.  If it had not been so painful, it
would almost have been a joke.  "When are you gonna quit that
silly runnin' and go be a *man*, *boy*?" Or "Where the hell is
your *pride*, *boy*?" But perhaps the most damning question in
his eyes, was the one he felt obligated to bellow at me almost
every Saturday night once I had started high school.  "What in
hell are you doing home readin' a god damned book when you
could be out with a girl, *boy*?"

Always *boy*, never Jim or James - as if by using that word he
was denying me any rightful claim to manhood.  As if the only
way I could prove my manliness was by giving in and doing what
he considered to be *manly* things.

I further compounded these blotches on my father's heretofore
undoubted reputation as a prepotent sire of *real men* by
being very good academically at school.  So good, in fact,
that I won a National Merit Scholarship.  It was one thing for
one of his brood to win a football scholarship at the local
university.  If you *had* to go to college, that, at least,
was the *manly* way to do it.  But to earn a scholarship based
on academic performance alone?  *Not* one of *his* kids! Nor
did it help my standing in his eyes one little bit when I was
the only male in the state to win one that year and the
picture in the newspaper showed five females and me.  The
final crowning indignity, however, was when more colleges
tried to recruit me for my academics than had courted my last
brother who had been our home state's "Mr. Football" the year
before.  My father washed his hands of me, and mostly left me
alone from then on, certain that I would never be *his* type
of *man*.  

Which meant, that I wasn't any kind of a man in his eyes, and
never would be.        

Not surprisingly, I snatched at the opportunity offered by the
scholarship to get as far away from my roots as possible.  I
ended up at a small university in the Northern Virginia
suburbs of the nation's capital.  It was not the most
prestigious institution that recruited me, but the additional
financial aid they offered meant I could afford to go there
and still have a little walking around money.  I was even able
to continue running track, *unmanly* though that pursuit may
have been to my father. 

It was toward the end my undergraduate years that the third
powerful word entered my life, and changed it forever.  My
first inkling of its existence came when I was surfing around
the 'Net, searching for something to use as reference material
for a paper that was coming due.  I don't even remember what I
thought I was actually looking for, but I do remember what I
found.  I had stumbled into the cyber-world version of
dominance and submission.  In particular, I had stumbled onto
the world of female dominance and male submission.

Everything in my hill country upbringing told me I should have
been outraged at what I saw portrayed in word and image on
that site, or at the very minimum, been intolerantly amused.
*Real men* did not submit to *mere* women. *Men* ordered,
women *obeyed*.  Back home, "henpecked" was the kindest thing
that would have been said about a male who was not in firm, if
not total control of *his* woman.  Whatever would *they* say
about that. . . person in the photo, tied naked and suffering
under what appeared to be a whip wielded by a nearly nude
woman?  With as much righteous indignation as I could dredge
up, I left the site and shutdown my computer.

But I remembered the site's address.

And over the course of the next few weeks, found myself
returning to that site over and over again.

Naturally, it did not stop there.  I followed the links to
other sites and found more material about what I now knew was
commonly referred to as D/S and Femdom.  Then, I, again by
accident more than intent, chanced upon the site of a woman
dominant and author.  

It was her writings that captured my attention, chilling me to
my soul, even as they gripped my imagination.  Her words
pointed to a woman of strong, and to me, unexpected contrasts. 
She wrote of torments in one paragraph, and of cuddles and
pets in the next; she spoke of abject humiliation in one
sentence and unimaginable pride in another.  The stories were
starkly colored tapestries of pain and pleasure, of caring and
hurting, and most remarkably of all to me, of love.

I knew then, what that third word was, but even more
importantly, I knew without doubt that the word aptly and
truly described me.  That word was and is submissive.  I was,
at first, thoroughly devastated by that unexpected revelation,
because it was incontrovertible proof that my father had been
correct about me all along. I wasn't a *man*.  After all, how
could a *real* man even contemplate putting himself willingly
under the power of a woman?

Only the words and stories on that magical site that kept me
sane during those dark times of self examination and
introspection.  The images she painted with her words reminded
me of old chivalric legends - of dragons to conquer and fair
maidens to rescue, of contests to win and trials to endure. 
There was courage in those scenes, and that gave me hope.  If
a submissive could show courage and bravery in the face of the
trials set for him by his Lady Fair, then perhaps it wasn't so
weak a thing to be a submissive?  At least, in such a context?

Heartened by that idea, I decided to try and find my own lady-
fair - which I thought would not be all that difficult.  One
of the more surprising lessons learned during my years as an
undergraduate, far away from the small town comparisons to my
rugged older brothers, was that most young women I met at
school *liked* me.  In retrospect, that is probably because I
was so unused to being around women my own age that I really
listened to them, which is not something my Dad's kind of
*real men* often did.  Over the years, particularly now that I
was a graduate student, I had developed close, if not quite
intimate, relationships with several very nice young women.  

Slowly, very cautiously, I began feeling out my then-
girlfriend about experimenting with some of the gentler games
I had found in my researches about Femdom.  Only I guess we
weren't *that* close, after all, because she dropped me like a
rock and all but ran for her dorm.  She never spoke to me
again outside of the classroom.

Other attempts were a little more successful, but not by much. 
One young woman tried playing with me, but sh got carried away
with using her belt to whip me, badly bruising me about the
thighs and buttocks.  Her look of trenchant self disgust when
she realized what she had done heralded the end of another
friendship.  Yet another relationship died when the woman in
question mocked me and derided me as "less than a man" after
she had finished with me.

Greatly discouraged and humiliated after that last abortive
attempt, I returned to my room and began to brood, a bottle of
cheap wine left over from a party helping me dull the pain. 
On a whim, I returned to the web site that had first fired my
now flagging courage.  How was it, I asked myself forlornly,
that she could accept such needs in a man, nurture such
feelings in a person, while these other very nice and caring
women could not?

Those questions kept eating at me and eating at me.  Finally,
my inhibitions drowned by half a liter of the fortified wine,
I clicked on her home page's "mailto" link.  I poured out my
questions, my recent failures and, yes, my pain into what
became a very long email message.  I clicked "send" button
before I could change my fuddled mind and then promptly fell
asleep at the keyboard.

Much later, the incessant chime of my email client announcing
new messages pierced my wine fogged brain.

It took a few moments to realize where I was and what was
making that hideous and agonizing sound.  As quickly as I
could, all the while being careful NOT to move my head, I
acknowledged and silenced (thank you, God) the new email
alarm.  Bleary-eyed, I looked at the offending message, but
did not recognize either the user name or the address domain.

Painfully awake now, I figured I might as well read the
message.  
          
     Dear James,
               
     I see by your email address that you attend college
     near where I live.  The emotion of your message
     touched me.  You have actually made me think you are
     sincere, a condition I assure you is very rare in my
     experience.
               
     It is always difficult to have something inside that
     others do not share, to be different.  Perhaps you
     would like to talk.  Tell you what - I will be at
     the Mall today for some shopping.  If you are at the
     Starbuck's Coffee shop at noon, maybe I can help you
     find where to search for your answers.  I will at
     least buy you a cup of coffee.
               
               Martine.
     
Stunned, I reread the message and then recalled my impulsive
message of the night before.  My stomach roiled as I realized
what I had done and I ran to the bathroom where I paid back a
first installment on the previous night's wine folly.

~------------~

Facing what appears to be a major, perhaps life changing
decision is always difficult.  Facing such a choice while
suffering the consequences of your first ever hangover is pure
hell.  That is how I felt about meeting Martine - for real, in
person.  Live, even.

One of life's hard-knocks lessons is that anticipation and
fantasy are usually better than the real life experiences. 
Martine's stories and essays had become very important to me
over the past year.  Many of my dreams and fantasies had been
built upon the strong foundation of her writings.  What if she
was really a wholly different person than the one pictured in
the stories she told?  What if everything I saw had been
nothing but a lie made to myself?

Emotional cowardice stalked me every inch of my march toward
my private Holy Grail.  I desperately wanted to turn back at
each stoplight as I drove to the mall.  Even after fighting
through all that, I almost headed back to the car at the mall
entrance, and then again at the caf‚ itself.  What it was
inside me that got finally propelled into the small
coffeehouse style seating area, I cannot really say.  Once
inside, whatever hidden reserves that had seen me through to
this goal vanished.  I just stood there, staring helplessly at
the people enjoying their coffee, their papers and their
books.  I guess I must have "looked" like I was looking for
someone, because a soft voice behind me asked "James?"

I turned around to find the owner of that voice.  A stockily
built woman of average height, wearing faded jeans, a
fisherman's knit sweater and old running shoes was looking at
me, an almost shy smile on her face.  Her hair was dark with
auburn highlights, shoulder length and very curly.  I was
bemused to find that I had to look down to see into her
laughing amber eyes..  That put her height at about my own,
and I guessed her weight to be something over 200 lbs.  Off
hand, I figured she was about ten years older than my own age
of twenty three years old.

"Ms. Martine?" I asked of this person so different from the
images I had built up in my mind.

"Yes, James.  Come and sit.  I hope you like coffee."  Numbly,
I followed as she led me to a little table in the back corner
of the shop.  I took the seat she indicated as she sat herself
down across from me.  

"Not quite what you expected, am I?" she said forthrightly. 

Still operating on pure nerve, I said what I really thought. 
"No. . .no. . you look so . .normal."

That earned me a hearty chuckle instead of the set down my
gauche statement deserved.  She took a sip of her own coffee 
and then settled back to study me closely.  "I don't have
pictures on that web site because I value my privacy, James,
not because I am uncomfortable or embarrassed by my
appearance.  I don't suppose you have ever heard of BBW's?"
she asked teasingly.  At my blank look, she smiled.  "Didn't
think so.  So, tell me, James, what made you write that
remarkable letter to me last night?"

This time, I made the conscious decision to be honest.  "I was
hurting, and I am afraid, more than a little drunk."

"That tells me what caused you to want to write that, James,
but not why you wrote to me."

I considered this for a long time before answering.  "Your
stories, mostly." I said softly.  "The romance and mutual
affection that you write about in your stories.  You've sort
of become my unofficial spiritual guide in all this."  I took
a deep breath.  "I guess I was thinking that you might
understand, and that you might be able to tell me how to find
the answers I don't seem to have."  

She did not say anything to me for a very long time, just sat
there staring through me.  Finally, it occurred to me that I
had probably offended her.  "I am sorry . . " I stammered as I
started to rise.

A surprisingly strong hand caught my wrist before I could
clear the table.  "No, stay right there.  Sit!"  Her tone of
voice had changed, becoming commanding.  I could now begin to
sense the power that pervaded her writings.  "I find that you
intrigue me, James.  You read my stories of enslavement and
torment, and see romance and affection.  That is very
intriguing, indeed.  You do know that I have done everything I
wrote about in those stories?" she asked in a more normal
voice.  "I have caused a great deal of pain in my time in the
scene."

"Nothing beyond what was expected, and you always saw to them
and cared for them afterwards."

"So?" she challenged, "Pain is pain.  Maybe I just don't want
to have to find new toys, so I am careful not to break them. 
Maybe I just toss them a few crumbs so they keep coming back
to me."

I considered that for a moment.  "Then, you are the best
author of fiction I have ever read, because you spend more
time talking about the caring and sharing than you do about
the whips and chains."

"Touche, James."  My answer must have pleased her because her
face lit up in a smile that made her look beautiful.  "So, do
you think you are ready to learn, first hand?"  Her grin was
infectious and she made a barely perceptible spanking motion
with her right hand, "Under my hand, so to speak?"

"MeeeeEEEEE?!?!?" I answered, surprise making my voice slide
up an octave."

"Yes, you, James.  You see things in my stories that most are
either too blind to see or choose to ignore.  I offer you the
opportunity to find your own answers.  We will try a scene,
you and I.  Afterwards, we will decide if we want to go beyond
that."

A knot the size of a grapefruit almost choked me, but nothing
was going to deny me this chance.  "Please." I whispered.

She nodded sharply, and handed me a card.  "Tomorrow is
Saturday.  Be at that address at ten o'clock tomorrow
morning."  There was an explicit "or else" in her voice.

This was all going so fast.  "But what. . . I mean. . what
will we do?"

She rose up and smiled gently down at me.  "Why, whatever *I*
want to do, James.  But don't worry *too* much, dear.  It
won't be anything too harsh, I promise, not for such a sweet
little novice slaveboy like you.  A little bondage, of course
- can't have you getting away before I have finished with you. 
Introductory stuff only.  I'll even promise that you'll still
be able to sit down after we've finished, but I will also
promise that every time you do for the next few days you will
remember me. You will remember me *very* well, indeed."

"Okay." I whispered.

Oddly, then her face hardened, and she reached down to cup my
chin up so she could stare into my eyes.  "One thing, though,
James.  I do not, will not *ever* fuck my slaves, *boy*.  Does
that change your mind?"

Slowly, stunned that she felt she even needed to say such a
thing, I shook my head, moving her palm with each movement of
my chin.  "Good.  Be there on time, James." then that sly grin
was back.  "Or suffer the consequences."

Unable to move to move from my seat, I just sat there watching
her leave, my eyes tracking each little movement.  Once she
was out of sight, I found I could breathe again.

I tried grimly to sort out my feelings on this.  Initially, as
she had no doubt seen given her first words, I had been
disappointed about her looks.  Somehow, in my fevered
imaginings I had envisioned her as a some supersexy, fetish-
garbed morph of Cindy Crawford, Elle MacPherson and Demi
Moore.  But my disappointment had faded quickly once I started
hearing her voice, once I had started seeing *her* and not my
silly fantasy.

What was that word she had said about me?  Intriguing - that
was it - she had said that *I* was intriguing.  Well, so was
she - *definitely* very intriguing.  She certainly looked . .
well. . cuddly was the only word I could find that adequately
described her figure - like someone you could really share a
hug with and not have them squeal about it being too tight. 
And her eyes and smile were simply spellbinding.

She certainly gave a whole new inflection and meaning to the
word "boy".  If my father had said it to me the way she had, I
would have been upset, but when she said it, it almost sounded
like an endearment.

One thing was certain - NOTHING was going to stop me from
keeping that appointment with her the next day.

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