Story 2: Submissive Feminist

Chapter 1:

I awoke in the early, dark hours of the morning, curled in a tight ball in the small cage that had been my home for the past two months. My body had gotten used to the small confines of my world. I didn't mind that it was easier to scratch my knee with my teeth than with my fingernails. I took comfort in the cold, steel of the walls of my cage.

As I brushed the sleep from my brain, my body was abuzz with the slow, simple rhythms of sleep. The sting of the lash on my flanks had long since faded from the night before. So, too, had the tremors of my self inflicted orgasm - forgotten, like a scent dispersed into the darkness.

I remembered a dream I'd had of Laysan. Bars had separated us. I'm not sure which of us was locked and which was free. It didn't matter. We both leant forward and our lips touched briefly and barely like two interacting breezes blowing from different directions. Our eyes locked in the only form of communication we needed. Love poured from her and filled my heart. I could only hope to reciprocate. Laysan. My love.

Is this what I am to be? Is this my lot? A schizophrenic bondagette locked away - protected from the world. What about my dreams? What about my plans? Are they all forgotten? Are they all best forgotten?

As the dim light of morning arose, Lisianski came forth, but not to talk to me. She talked with other unknown voices that did not feel the need to direct their inquiries to me. Nor did they make attempts to be sensitive to my feelings or being.

"She's obviously not the one, Lisianski," a voice said. "Her story, Mirror, was good. It was coherent, I suppose. The team liked it. But, there is no sign that she is the one we are looking for. We are going to need to terminate."

Terminate? I lay, holding my breath, praying for a morsel of information as to my fate.

"No!" Lisianski's voice shot back. "You may be right. She's not the one. But, I don't want to terminate. I still see hope in her."

"What are you thinking?" the voice responded calmly.

"Progenitress. She is a progenitress."

"A what?" a third voice asked.

"A progenitress," Lisianski explained. "It comes from the word 'progenitor' which means ancestor or, in this case, founder. Basically, it means that I believe that she might conjure the one that we are looking for. She might create 'The One' as a character in a story for example. Or perhaps the one will come to her in a dream."

A chill rippled up my backbone and I closed my eyes tightly. Laysan... Tears began to plop softly on the vinyl padding of the bottom of my cage.

"Do you have any evidence?" the voice asked.

"No. But, the evidence may be there," Lisianski responded.

"That's too much data to go through quickly," the voice responded. "I'll give you a little time to probe her in a traditional manner, but then we'll need to use more extreme tactics."

"Ok," Lisianski responded. "Hopefully, it won't come to that..."

<>--+-

I drifted sleepily through the early morning hours until Lisianski woke me up and commanded me to get ready for work quickly. As I showered, she began to ask questions.

"Do you remember your dreams, subGrrl?" she asked.

"All the time," I answered as I rinsed the conditioner from my hair.

"Do you know the people in your dreams?"

"Sometimes..."

"Do you ever have a dream of a specific person who you do not know in waking life? She would be quite unique, I believe..." Lisianski continued.

"No," I lied.

There was a naked pause as I rinsed soap from my legs. I thought I heard a clucking sound.

"She's lying," some unknown voice said.

"Hey! Who are those other voices, Lisianski?" I asked, becoming angry.

"Some of my colleagues," Lisianski replied. "Don't worry about them."

"Don't worry about them? I hear random voices in my head and I'm not supposed to be worried?" I asked. "Who the hell are they? It's my head! I have every right to know who these voices belong to."

"Well..." Lisianski said. "Um... Ok... There's Alba, Paty, Ceylon, McNear, Corwin, Gardner, um... Teal, Sandalwood, 2'Ahlay, KaMoi..."

"Wait! Wait, wait, wait!" I screamed.

"...Cooper, Brooke, Moller, Albrecht, Munro, Bristle..."

"Who the fuck are all these people? Tell them to get the fuck out of my head!" I screamed.

"Hey! Don't get mad at me, subGrrl!" Lisianski responded. "It's not my fault that your brain chemistry is particularly receptive to the formation of sub-sentience..."

"Sub-sentience? What?"

"Look, subGrrl," Lisianski comforted me, "I'm the lead on this mission. I'm the point for all communication. Don't fret yourself. Just keep working hard. Try to tell the truth."

Chapter 2:

At work that morning NemesisGirl flipped through a few ideas for stories that I had suggested for her.

"Hmmm... This is incredible, subGrrl! Even today, 33 states in the US consider spousal rape to be a lesser crime than general rape."

"Yes Mistress!" I responded excitedly, "Indeed, until the 1980's, when a woman agreed to marry, she was effectively giving her partner her consent to take her sexually whether she wanted it or not - for the rest of her married life." I did not like calling NemesisGirl 'Mistress', but I was quite happy that she found my article suggestions interesting.

"Very good, my little pet." She looked up from the notes smiling and examined me for a second until I felt a little embarrassed and began to fidget. "I see that you wore the skirt and the turtleneck sweater as I asked you to, Sweet."

"Yes, Mistress," I frowned and looked down at the floor. The sweater was kind of ugly in a Freddy Krueger sort of way, but it effectively hid the locked collar that NemesisGirl made me wear.

"Reach under your chair," NemesisGirl commanded softly.

Confused, I slowly felt underneath my office chair. A thin chain seemed to be looped around the swivel pole that supported my seat. I pulled on it and found about a meter of chain locked to the chair.

"Lock that to your collar," NemesisGirl commanded as she handed me a small padlock.

I looked at her like she was crazy. "But..."

"Do it!" she commanded.

I took the padlock from her and pulled down on the neck of my sweater.

"Unless you want everybody to see that you are locked to your chair, subGrrl, I'd suggest that you pull the chain up underneath your clothes."

I stared at her for a moment. Certainly, she was kidding. She frowned and swiveled back to her computer and began typing.

"You spend half the day hiding in the bathroom, talking to yourself, subGrrl. From now on, you will need to ask my permission to get up from your chair. You can talk to yourself all you want right here in our cube." She turned back toward me with a very serious look on her face. "Now, lock the chain to your collar."

I glanced briefly out the entrance of our cubicle to see if anyone was nearby. Slowly, I began to feed the chain underneath my skirt. I felt the links fiddle beneath my waist band as I pulled the chain higher. With my hands underneath my sweater I lifted the chain - cold metal sliding across my stomach - all the way to my neck.

"Lock the chain to your collar," NemesisGirl said again. She was not even watching. She had turned around and was browsing through her email.

I fed the padlock through the last link of the chain and the loop on my locked collar. I squeezed the padlock until it clicked.

"Good pet," NemesisGirl said.

She had measured the chain well. Sitting as I was, the chain was hidden underneath my clothes. It did not hang down at all below my chair either. I would probably be able to stand, but if I began to walk, my chair would dutifully follow closely behind me.

I turned to my desk, flush, perhaps perspiring just a little. I lifted my hand to my neck to feel the padlock beneath the neck of my sweater and stared somewhat blankly at my computer screen. My stomach felt as though filled with a mob of meerkats, standing and staring and squating and foraging.

At this point, I would like to assure the reader that I knew precisely what was happening. After all, my tale is a particularly naive allegory. Our names are chosen to splatter the reader with a messy cliche upon which to base their first impressions. I am subGrrl, for example, primarily because I am submissive... particularly so. By definition, I, as a submissive, prefer to be in situations where I give control away to someone else. Many people are submissive. Many people choose to be submissive in particular situations, but are not at other times - they switch. I, unfortunately, am the single-toned variety - ever submissive, ever content to give away control.

But, what does submissive really mean? What does it imply? I think that the answers to those questions run much deeper than a shallow tale such as this. Regardless, a chain and a lock and its application upon me are determinedly in step with my nature.

So, needless to say, I knew what I was doing when I squeezed that lock shut. I could have refused - even if it had lost me my job, even if it had resulted in a particular load of embarrassment shovelled upon me. If I had not (at some level, at least) wanted to close the lock and play along with NemesisGirl I could have stood and walked away. Also, I knew the strange rippling thrill that I'd feel as soon as the lock reported its state, unrelentingly secured and unopenable to the tool-less. I knew... maybe not to the exact extent where my breath seemed to have slipped away and my hands trembled uncontrollably, but still... I knew that it could happen. Would happen... Likely.

Being submissive is about trust. I did not necessarily trust NemesisGirl. But, I do believe that my story ideation efforts have been helping her career. Indeed, she has had the most bylines in the paper of any other journalist since she has pressed me into her service. I trusted that she would not treat me in a way to jeopardize her continued success.

So, in summary, to suggest that either of us did not gain something from the clicking of the lock would be a complete lie.

And I try to never lie.

I CHOSE to close the lock.

It wasn't that difficult to DECIDE to close the lock.

...Particularly with Lisianski screaming at me in my head about the unpleasant repercussions if I did not.

Chapter 3:

The day went by without too much trauma. I had to ask NemesisGirl permission to go to the bathroom, but she never attempted to prevent me from doing so, although I was shocked when she unlocked the chain at its attachment to the chair, forcing me to stagger off to the loo with the links banging around my thighs.

After several months of living in a cage, I had taken on a particular set of habits that resulted in me using the bathroom much more during the day at work than at night. It's just the type of thing that happens when you are faced with sleeping draped over a used bedpan. Additionally, I often went to the privacy of a stall simply to convene with Lisianski. Talking to her in public makes people, including myself, a little uncomfortable. Needless to say, NemesisGirl was becoming a bit exasperated by the end of the day.

"Alright, subGrrl! There needs to be some form of payment for my having to take time out of my day to lock and unlock you," she said, finally.

"Just leave me unlocked," I suggested.

"Ha ha! No! When you return from the bathroom, I expect you to give me your panties."

"You want my what?!"

"Panties! Just drop them in my purse over there when you get back," she said.

Well... I did as she said.

The only other moment of concern occurred when BossWoman stopped by to check on an article NemesisGirl was working on (that I had suggested, thank you). At the time, I was clicking away on an obituary for an expired taxidermist and his dream of being buried with the stuffings of all his past cats. (Luckily, his current nest of three cats still had each other. Hopefully they wouldn't miss the replicas of their forebears. Anyways... BossWoman stopped by.)

"Hello, subGrrl! How are you today?" her voice sang.

I turned, squinting into the light she emitted naturally like a halo. I was about to say something when I felt the chain slide subtly across my stomach as I twisted and my voice caught, stillborn. I began to sweat at the thought of her discovering my leashed state. I almost jumped when she lay her lithe hand upon my shoulder - her touch, like a defibrillator shocking my heart up into flight mode.

"You are doing such a great job, as always," she said.

I smiled feebly and she turned to talk with NemesisGirl who had been watching the interaction with a smug little smile pinching her lips.

I turned back to my desk and pretended to write about the necessary coffin modifications to hold all the dead cats while BossWoman's aura pushed up against my back and forced parts of my anatomy to vibrate here and there and blood to surge distractingly.

At the end of the day, I expected NemesisGirl to return my panties. Instead she simply unlocked the chain underneath the chair leaving my leash dangling.

"See you tomorrow, subGrrl," she said and quickly walked away.

Chapter 4:

The evening air on the cool Spring day quickly seeped into the links of the chain as they rattled against my unprotected underside. I sat down with a bit of a clatter at the bus stop and was shocked to see a few links hanging down further than my skirt. I quickly shielded them with my purse and spent my time fidgeting, trying to pull a few links over the waistband of my skirt, and wondering if they had been visible dangling down as I had walked around.

When the bus arrived, I found that, as usual, my seat was empty and waiting for me, the crazy woman on the 6:15. Lisianski started laughing as we navigated the rush hour traffic.

"You seem to be gaining hardware," she said.

"Fuck off!" I whispered.

Even when you spend most of your time in a cage it is necessary to run various errands. So, it was several hours later that I finally made it home, stripped to my collar and leash, and began to slither backwards into my cocoon. I immediately noticed the new features that my cage had acquired during the day.

"What is this, Mistress?" I asked.

"I'll explain in detail in a moment, subGrrl. But first," Lisianski replied, "I was wondering if you happened to have remembered any strangely powerful, recurring entities from your dreams."

"Entities?" I inquired.

"Yes. Entities. Characters. Spirits. People not from your waking life."

I answered negatively.

A reader of this story may wonder why, thinking that as these BDSM erotic tales generally seem to go, non-cooperativity generally lands the protagonist in progressively more dire straits. Indeed, it would seem, that is precisely what was about to occur to me. At the time, however, I did not realize that I was a character in a story. I thought my prevarication would hold and the topic would be forgotten.

Additionally, a reader might wonder why I was resistant to reveal Laysan in the first place. Well, having a voice, or voices residing in one's head is a particular invasion of one's privacy. Lisianski seemed to see what I saw. She heard what I heard. But, she never seemed to be able to hear my thoughts. My thoughts were the only bit of privacy that I still retained. I only ever saw Laysan in my dreams. She was mine. All mine. Only mine. I loved her! If I had told Lisianski, I believed that she would probably have sullied Laysan just as she had the rest of my life.

"Ok, subGrrl, if you say so," Lisianski sighed as I closed the cage door with a clatter and squeezed the combination lock shut.

It seemed that my feeding tube now ended in a rather bulbous rubber attachment.

"You'll find that in order to suck your protein shake, you will need to insert that ball into your mouth," Lisianski explained.

I pushed the bulb past my teeth and closed my mouth around it. When I sucked I felt a delicious stream of chocolatey fluid pour into the back of my mouth. "Mmm!" I was very hungry.

"You need to buckle those two straps behind your neck to keep the bulb in your mouth."

"Oh ay," I mumbled around the tube as I pulled the straps underneath my hair and fixed the buckle tightly. I wasn't certain how this bulb would simply fall from my mouth based on the work required to get it in, but whatever...

"Also," Lisianski continued, "knowing how well you like locks and links, you will find two shiney new wrist shackles to wear while you are in the cage."

I examined them skeptically. A short Y of chain connected the cuffs to the center bar on the cage door.

"Don't worry!" Lisianski stated quickly. "They won't prevent you from using the tablet to make your symbol substitutions as I have assigned."

I wrapped the cuffs around my wrists until they locked into place. They were tight, but comfortable - a perfect fit.

"The key to the cuffs is around the side of the cage. You won't be able to reach it until the door is open. Now, please, get to work!"

After I grew tired from choosing new bondage emojis to use for substitutions, Lisianski was kind enough to let me peruse amateur bondage erotica. On this particular night, I was fortunate to read a pretty interesting story. The heroine, a submissive female, was described in rich, complex technicolor. She was enticed, not degraded. She was loved, not abused. I felt a longing deep within as she navigated her travails with dignity and finesse. I felt a sense of comradery, a similarity... I felt for a brief moment that I was not so completely alone in the world. Were a dominant female like the one in the story, to find me, to take me, to control me, I could only imagine that I would be so complete.

I hummed happily as I meandered through the story. Casually sucking up my dinner.

It was late and dark by the time I was finished. My dinner was gone. The story had left me feeling quite aroused. I was ready to receive my nightly twenty lashes, masturbate, and dream sweet dreams of Laysan. I reached to undo the buckle and remove the bulb from my mouth, but when I did the chain holding my cuffs snapped tight before my fingers made it halfway to their destination.

"Mmm!?"

I tried to shuffle forward further and press my face against the bars, but nothing I did allowed me to sufficiently grasp and manipulate the buckle and I grunted loudly and angrily at Lisianski at the realization that I would not be able to remove the gag, for that is what this bulb was, until my hands were free in the morning.

I slumped to my side cursing Lisianski behind my gag.

"Your lashings, subGrrl. Let's go. It's late."

"Uh ooo!" I cursed again, but pressed myself back against the window and the invasive rear bar. I heard a swish and felt a pelt of fire stripe itself across my flanks causing my muscles to tense as I screamed into the gag.

Shots of searing pain repeatedly flashed through me until a splash of adrenaline soaked my nerves and oozed from within me. Afterwards, I collapsed in tears, shaking, as the fiery pain eased leaving a dull throb of unrepentant longing. It was this longing that over the past two months I had conditioned myself to relieve through auto-ministrations. But, once again, as I reached to settle the longing, the forgotten chains that held my hands at the front of the cage snapped taut.

"Mmm!!"

I banged around in the cage trying to reposition myself in some way. Tears began to rain in earnest and I let forth a long drawn-out, guttural, angry, muffled scream as I realized my longing would be left to find its own way on this night.

"Good night, subGrrl," Lisianski said.

<>--+-

I did not go to sleep easily rattling around in my cage attempting to grind myself against my heel or the cold metal edge of the bedpan. Much later in the wee hours of the morning as I lay motionless and angry, blanketed in frustration, I heard the unknown voice begin to talk with Lisianski.

"No luck? Is she lying?"

"Nope. No luck. But it doesn't matter now whether she is lying or not. We have only one option," Lisianski said.

"You're going to adjust her reality coefficients?" the voice asked.

"We've got to," Lisianski sighed.

"Won't that result in dangerous hallucinations?"

"Maybe..."

My eyes popped open and stared into the darkness of my small, steel home.

"But, the only way to see inside her dreams is to make her see dream material when she is awake."

"Ok," the other voice said. "I'll begin to make the Etheryords."

Chapter 5:

That night I dreamt of Laysan.

"Can you understand me?" I asked her desperately.

She shook her head affirmatively.

"You need to run and hide! They are after you! You can't let them find you!"

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. I don't think she had the slightest clue what I was talking about.

"They want to steal you from me. They want to hurt you. I love you so much, Laysan. I'm so afraid of what they will do to you!"

She just shook her head and poked at the sun-drenched container of the dream in which we stood causing the scenery to ripple as she did.

"No! I don't think that the dream will protect you! They're probably even somewhere nearby now," I said frantically scanning through the trees and unicorns.

She wrapped her arms and chains around me and pulled me close so that our cheeks touched and her unruly mane tickled the end of my nose. She held me so tightly, that I felt her heart beat in her breast.

"I can't lose you Laysan," I cried. "You're all that I have."

She stroked my hair and kissed my chin as the dream slowly faded away.

<>--+-

Since I take the same bus to work and back every day, I see the same crowd of regulars clocking their way through their lives. Some think I'm scary, I think. Some think I'm funny. Some just smirk. They all give me a wide berth. I sit in the same seat every day. It's always there waiting for me. Everyone knows it is mine. No one dares sit in either my chair or the one next to it. Occasionally, a new rider will mistakenly sit there, though less and less lately. I think other riders are warning the uninitiated. I imagine them saying, "That's the crazy lady's seat" before the bus arrives at my stop. Even the driver looks at me oddly.

So, I was surprised to see a tall, thin woman huddled in a long black raincoat, hiding underneath a slick hat, sitting in my window seat. I cautiously sat beside her gently patting myself to ensure that NemesisGirl's leash was sufficiently hidden beneath my clothes.

I was staring at the designs of water stains on my leather purse when I got the odd sensation that someone was staring at me. I often feel that people are staring at me, particularly on my bus ride, but this was something more. It was like a mysterious pin prick on my neck that wouldn't resolve itself - a misfiring nerve ending perhaps.

I slithered my hand up to my neck, trying to stay as small as possible and brushed the sensation away. No sooner had I returned my hand to my lap, when I felt the pin prick ignite again. The tall woman next to me shifted. She was looking at me. I knew she was. I brushed my neck again and scooted further towards the outside of the seat until one butt cheek was halfway hanging off.

A slithering whisper suddenly cut down the aisle of the bus assaulting my ears. "subGrrl!"

Wracked with fear and a growing sense of vertigo I twisted to look at the tall, raincoated intruder. As I did she slowly turned her face towards me and I screamed and staggered up from my seat. Her face!

Well... she had a face, indeed, perfectly contoured, but upon it there were no features. She had no eyes. Her perfect thin nose had no nostrils. And where her mouth should have been there was nothing but smooth skin.

"subGrrl!!!" she whispered, the sound, loud and emanating from her very being - knifing into my head. I screamed again, staggering backwards as I did until I fell into a man's lap who had been sitting across the aisle.

He pushed me away screaming, "Crazy, fucking bitch!" and I fell into the aisle of the bus, the contents of my purse pouring across the floor. I looked up in fear, certain that the faceless woman was about to pounce on top of me, but she was gone. My window seat was empty.

"Are you having an episode back there, Loony Girl?" the bus driver yelled from his seat.

I realized that the bus had stopped. Everyone was looking at me crouched and shaking on the floor. I feebly shook my head no.

"Do you need to get off the bus?" he asked.

I looked up to the seat where the faceless woman had been, then back at the bus driver. "No. I'm fine..."

"Ok, then..."

I started crawling around on my hands and knees gathering items that had tumbled from my purse. Over the deafening silence I heard the scraping of metal across the floor. Before I even looked, I knew that my leash was hanging out from my skirt in plain view. I glanced up to see all the patrons staring at me. I quickly scraped the rest of my purse together and climbed into my seat, adjusting my clothes to hide the chain.

"Looks like someone forgot to lock Loony's leash to the tree today..." some older woman said.

I pressed my face and head to the window, doing my best to disappear, wiping tears as they silently fell down my face.