3.A Piece of Cake II

Linda had prevailed on Manny to come for a visit. The three chatted for a while, smoked a joint (Linda was a little surprised that Manny had accepted the offer, as he seemed a bit “square”) then went out to a club. After Manny left, Linda asked Alice what she thought of him.

“Well, he’s very handsome. He’s even charming, in his own peculiar way. But I don’t like him.”

“Why not?”

After a brief silence Alice answered, “He seems rather conceited.”

“Really?”

“He’s rather fond of the sound of his own voice. He’s very confident in his own opinions.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“He also seems a bit old for you.” Manny was thirty-seven, fifteen years older that Linda.

“You’ve slept with older men.”

“Yeah, but I don’t get serious about them.”

“You’re never serious about anyone.”

Alice laughed complacently. “True. It’s best not to be.”

That ended the subject but the next day Linda again began talking about Manny, trying to induce Alice to express a more favorable opinion. Her friend listened quietly for a while and then said, “He looks like the jealous type.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s possessive. He treats you like a possession.”

Alice viewed herself as a student of human nature, something she considered part of her training as an actress, and Linda was accustomed to hearing these somewhat oracular pronouncements. This one puzzled Linda, because while Manny could be bossy in private, there seemed nothing unusual in his conduct the previous evening.

“What do you mean? I don’t know where you get that.”

“It’s just something I sense. The way he looks at you, touches you.”

That ended the conversation. Linda thought Alice was just being weird. But later it came to seem prophetic. Then today at lunch she had even come out and suggested that Manny treated her as his slave. Yes, Alice was intuitive; she saw things other people didn’t. Now she dimly perceived the truth as through a veil. Still, she would have been genuinely shocked if she knew the full truth—the truth that her childhood friend Linda Gerich really was Manfred Owen’s slave, that he owned her body and soul. It was not, of course, the literal truth, as slavery was not a legal institution in the United States in the late twentieth century, although she sometimes thought that if there were a legal way to sign away her freedom she would gladly do it. And what were legal technicalities anyway next to the sacred bonds that united them?

How had they got started on this subject? It had all started with a piece of cake, and her friend’s innocent desire to share it with her. One morning three months ago, having showered, Linda examined herself in the mirror. Suddenly she thought she looked fat. Standing on a bathroom scale, she discovered she had gained five pounds since the last time she’d weighed herself. That evening she told Manny. He didn’t seem overly concerned, and even appeared to be amused at her volunteering the information. But observing her seriousness, he pondered for a while, then said it was because she was too fond of desserts, so from that time forward he forbade them, and enjoined her to weigh herself every morning. On a couple of occasions when they ate dinner out he relaxed the prohibition, but when away from him it was absolute.

But how would he know if she violated the prohibition? It would have been easy enough to deceive him. It would have been, as the saying goes, a piece of cake. The answer is that she would tell him. Yes, it was true that she could have avoided the quarrel with her friend by the simply expedient of accepting the tiny piece she had proffered. Alice was right, it was harmless. But Manny had laid down his rule and there were no exceptions in the fine print. Moreover, it was part of her obligation as a slave not only to obey his rules, but to be honest with him about any violations. There was a code to this kind of relationship, and if you weren’t going to follow the code what was the point of entering into it?

Not only that, she didn’t even think she was capable of lying to him. From time to time he would question her as to whether she was obeying his rules. He would make her look him in the eyes—those hard, dazzling blue eyes—and she was convinced that if she did lie, her face would betray her.

Manny had forbidden her to disclose the nature of their relationship to anyone. He didn’t explain why. He rarely explained his decisions to her; as her Master he wasn’t obliged to. Perhaps he viewed it as simple prudence, or maybe he thought she wouldn’t be able to handle emotionally the consequences. But she had hoped he might someday relax the prohibition with respect to her best friend, the friend to whom she had once confided everything, all her experiences, her hopes and her dreams. Now she wondered whether she would tell Alice even if she could, whether she was even capable of understanding. True, Alice was liberally minded and sexually adventurous; she had surely heard of sadomasochism. But while she might understand the appeal of recreational spankings, or of, say, being tied spread-eagled to the bed posts while being fucked—she could imagine Alice trying that—she wouldn’t understand or approve of a lifestyle so all-encompassing, a surrender of independence so total.

A mere piece of cake indeed. Eating that little piece would have been sufficient to avert a quarrel with her best friend. But rules are rules. She liked having rules to follow; she enjoyed the sensation—it was the romance of her life—of being under Manny’s control, every minute of every day, even when he was far away. That’s why if surrendering to a momentary weakness she had disobeyed him, she would have confessed later, in order that she would be punished for it. It wasn’t that she liked being punished, it was unpleasant, but it was necessary for maintaining the reality of that control, which required that any act of disobedience, however small, be followed by inevitable punishment.

Yes, that’s what it was that Alice would never be able to understand, the pleasure she experienced in being controlled, in having to follow rules and being liable for punishment. It was the thrill of being owned—of having a Master.