Foreword: (from Pathways to Submission, chapter 5)

Moving out of the city and into the suburbs was a great idea two months ago. Now I’m not so sure. At the time, Tom and I had been married for six months and our tiny apartment in town was becoming very cramped. Renting this three bedroom house for the same cost as our apartment was an obvious solution. The move requires a forty minute daily commute on the train, but our work hours meant we could travel together. That was before I lost my job when my employers went bankrupt. Now I’m stuck at home with little to do apart from looking for another job.

I say farewell to Tom as he leaves for work and I promptly start the housework. I have a job interview at four o’clock at a local firm which sounds promising, but until then, my time is my own. I’ve barely started the housework when the doorbell rings.

“Hello, Tania,” says our next door neighbour, Rosalyn. “I’m going down to the village this morning. Do you want to come?”

“Um ... Yeah ... Sure,” I reply. “What time are you going.”

“Now.”

I regard Rosalyn as a good friend as well as our neighbour. Her biggest flaw is her tendency to decide things on the spur of the moment. Consequently, I never get any advance notice of what she has in mind.

“Oh! Okay. Give me a minute while I grab my coat. Come in and sit down.”

I dash to the bathroom, and then to our bedroom to change into something more appropriate for shopping. I return to the living room to find Rosalyn studying our old DVD collection. Like most people we watch new movies and the like on a streaming channel, but neither of us have parted with our personal collection of DVDs, even though we rarely watch them.

“Are these yours or Tom’s?” asks Rosalyn.

“Top shelf are Tom’s. Lower shelf are mine,” I reply.

“Hmm. An interesting collection,” she says. “Did you know that your movie collection can tell a lot about your personality and fetishes?”

I never considered that possibility, but I suppose it could be true. If I didn’t feel comfortable around Rosalyn, I might begin to resent her intrusion into our private lives. Tom’s collection would probably betray that he’s a twenty-three year old teenager. My collection would suggest something entirely different.

“You have a lot of erotica in your collection,” says Rosalyn. “Oh! You’ve got The Story of O. I’ve always wanted to watch that. Let’s ditch the shopping and watch this instead.”

“You’re welcome to borrow it,” I say, not feeling comfortable at the prospect of watching it with Rosalyn. I’ve always had a fetish for being in O’s situation, as Tom has discovered. But I’m not sure it’s something I want Rosalyn to know.

“I don’t have a DVD player any more,” replies Rosalyn. “Don’t be a wet blanket. I’ve read the book, so I know what it’s about.”