“I’ll be calling it a night, Emma,” says Mia as she picks up her jacket. “Again, great speech!”

“Thank you, it was a great crowd,” I respond. “I’ll finish my drink and leave too in a few minutes.”

I am tired as well, but my Margarita is still full. No need to be wasteful. As I take a ship through the straw someone slips on the stool next to me.

“Amazing speech,” she says. “My master and I are big fans.”

I almost choke on my drink.

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah!” she continues enthusiastically. “You are a symbol of women empowerment.”

“Well,” I stutter, too flabbergasted to speak clearly, “I’m not sure where in my speech did you hear me say it was ok to have a master. I think it was right the opposite.”

“Don’t be silly. Let me buy you a drink. Two of whatever she’s having” She calls the waitress before I can decline.

“Sorry, no offense. But I think you misunderstood the message.”

“Oh god, I hope not. Maybe you can help me out?”

I check the time on my phone as the server puts another drink next to my current one. I sigh.

“I guess. What I said is that women don’t need masters. Women don’t need men or anyone else to tell them what to do. We are free to do as we wish.”

“Exactly,” she says chirpily.

“How is being owned by a Master anything like what I said,” I continue starting to get upset.

“Well, I chose to have a Master.” She says simply, and looks at my eyes as if that should reveal the secrets of the universe.

“Of course, but…” I start saying. I look for the words, but none are coming.

For someone who is used to debating women’s rights at the highest levels, being speechless against a seven words argument was disarming.

“I guess,” I continue defeated, now with a much lower voice. “if that is what you want, I guess it’s ok.”

“Of course it is. Actually, I’ll argue that you are way more oppressed,” she says air quoting the last word, “than me.”

“What? How do you figure?” I snap

“Well, you think it’s a bad thing because society made you think it is. You won’t give it a chance, because of what society would think of you.”

“I don’t have a master because I don’t like it!” I answer energetically.

“And how do you know if you never tried?” She says.

She finishes the rest of her drink and stands up.

“Look, if you want to be truly free you need to make an educated and mindful decision to be so.” She says handing me a card. “If you want to try out in a safe environment, Master always welcomes new toys,” she laughs and turns around. “Keep spreading the good message,” she says finally as she leaves the bar.

Back at home, I get a cup of wine and a book. I head to the bathroom where I start playing some music and prepare the bathtub.

As I get in the water and start reading, I realize my eyes are browsing the pages without taking in any of the content. I wonder, instead, if the strange girl’s point had any validity at all. Shortly, I am being flooded by memories of my past relationships, always in one way or another, dominated by my political and activist life; always taking the lead in the relationship; always wearing the pants.

I chuckle at the sexist remark. But then I realize that I had always resisted following a man; out of principle, even when it was the right thing to do. That’s something that I was trying to improve in my life, for I know it’s not right to disregard reason for no good reason. But I couldn’t help being always worried about the optics, about being THE role model.

I finish the wine and put both the cup and the book away, looking at my body hidden under a wrap of soap bubbles. Is that what I’m doing to myself? Depriving myself of experiences only to please others.

“Oh my god!” I gasp suddenly. “She has a master, I have millions.”

Even though the realization had hit me like a hammer, the idea of giving off my free will is still too hard to assimilate, but as I lay, sleepless on my empty bed, it starts gaining traction.

It’s six in the morning when dawn starts lighting up the room. My eyes are still glued to the ceiling when I decide this would not keep me awake ever again.

“When can we do it? Emma.-“ I text the number on the business card.

I had to wait three days during which the thought didn’t leave my mind. It was getting to the point where it was affecting my work and my daily life, but it was finally time.

I knock on the door and she opens it only a few seconds later. It was hard to recognize the same girl from the bar. Tonight, she is naked, wearing only a collar, heavy makeup on her face, and her hair wrapped in a ponytail. I hesitate to move as she shows me in, but she just leaves the door open and turns around, crawling, disappearing behind a door frame.

I walk in slowly, and before I turn to the door frame I knock on it.

“Come in, sit, please.” A man says from inside.

He sits on a sofa. He’s in his forties, maybe a few years older than I am, and definitely many years older than she was. She sits on her knees next to him, his hand resting on her head. I want to feel disgusted by the depiction of servitude, but she looks so happy, I can’t find it in myself to do so.

Cautiously I move to the couch in front of them and sat down without saying a word. The whole situation is already so out of character for me.

“My name is Benjamin; call me Ben,” he says kindly. “We are both big fans of you; Tara told me about you. I’m happy you decided to give this a try.”

“Hi,” I start to say meekly. I clear my voice looking for resolve and finally manage a more energetic tone. “I was… intrigued. I am not sure what I want to do yet, though, I didn’t agree to anything.”

He smiles broadly.

“Of course. Nobody will force you to do anything; that’s the point.”

“I don’t think I understand that, and believe me, I’ve thought about it a lot.”

“I’ll try to explain,” he continues calmly. “I didn’t force Tara to be on her knees next to me. She is there because she wants to be there.”

“Isn’t she there under your instructions?” I interrupt

“She is,” he says simply, again as if that explained everything.

“So what if she wants to stand up and jump? Can she do that?”

“Hmmm…”, he considers for a moment. “She decided to let me decide about everything in her life. That makes her feel good. She may feel like standing and jumping, but she will not want to stand and jump, because I hadn’t told her to do so. Does that make more sense?” He asks.

I’m still confused, but I can’t help fixating on the happiness on Tara’s face through the conversation, as his hand softly pets her head.

“How would this work? If I accepted, of course.”

“Of course,” he smiles again. “It’s very easy. You do what I tell you to do. This will be, I want you to understand, a mock-up of what submitting truly is. You’d need to commit to way more than one night to truly understand this,” he says pointing at both of them. “But maybe it will be enough to inspire your curiosity. I imagine you have a couple of friends that know you are somewhere,” he says winking at somewhere. “waiting for you to text them that you are ok?”

“Yes,” I answer suddenly self-conscious.

“You will have to let me know when they expect you so I let you text them at those times. We wouldn’t want anyone calling the cops, right?” He laughs. “The other three rules are simple. One, you need to trust me, I know we just met, and I know is hard, but it won’t work otherwise. Two, you do what I tell you when I tell you.”

He lets that sink for a moment and I appreciate the time to assimilate it. I feel an urge to leave, but I’m worried if I do I never will put this behind me.

“What’s the third rule?” I finally ask, anxious.

“I won’t listen to you, at least in the way you are used to unless you use your safe phrase.”

“What’s the safe phrase?”

“If you want me to stop you’ll recite Romans 6:23,” he says authoritatively.

I gasp, and then, both start laughing, almost choking.

“I joke, I joke,” he says out of breath. “What about the word ‘Caribe’?”

“Oh… yes, that’s better,” I smile.