Chapter 1: The Invitation

I suppose it was all my own fault. I should have known what I was getting into. Or maybe I did know, and that was why I got into it. Sometimes it's hard to say what we do of our own conscious volition, and what we are somehow drawn into doing. But it happened all the same.

It was the summer after my junior year in college, when the world still lay before me. I was living in Berlin, in Kreuzberg, and like any good American college student, I spent my nights in Prenzlauer Berg, in what had once been East Berlin. I was nominally in Berlin to learn German and to study art history, but really I was there to have fun. And fun I had. It was late June, only three weeks after I had arrived, and I had fallen in with a group of German students whom I idolized - older, better traveled, more world-weary, they seemed the very embodiment of sophistication to a girl from California, abroad for the first time.

My real idol, though I tried my best not to admit it, was tall, black-haired, leather-clad Cristina, a philosophy student and probably a lesbian. Despite my considerably shorter stature, chestnut-brown hair, and awkward tendency to smile when Cristina would have scowled, I fantasized about being like her - hard, cutting, and supremely self-confident. When she invited me to do something with her, I would invariably forget whatever plans I had to trail along with her loyally.

So it was one day when she called my apartment and asked - no, told - me to come have breakfast with her. We were eating croissants and drinking black coffee at an outdoor table when she pushed her copy of Zitty across the table to me, pointed at an advertisement, and said, "What do you think of that?"

I looked at the ad. It was a small black-and-white picture of a woman on hands and knees, wearing only the manacles that joined her wrists and ankles, a metal collar, and a leash, her lips pressed against a whip being held above her face by an unseen master. I think my whole body must have quivered when I saw that picture. It was not the first time I had wondered what it would be like to be that woman - naked, chained, and completely at the mercy of a firm master. Or mistress. Here I was looking at the image of my fantasy.

I shook my head to clear my eyes and read the ad. It advertised a "Bondage Ball" at a large East Berlin club - the next evening. I had heard dimly of this sort of thing - a vast, tumultuous frenzy of leather-clad masters and slaves groping each other to loud techno music - and had even, in my more libertine moments, imagined that I might summon up the courage to go. But now that it was before me...

"Well? I see that you are interested." Cristina's British-German accent brought me back to the breakfast table.

"Um... it seems interesting. I've never been to something like that, but I've often thought of going." That, at least, was true.

Cristina gave me a long, hard look. I wondered if she could see into my eyes and see a naked slave hiding behind them, if my inner nature were so evident. I lowered my eyes, before realizing that was exactly what a slave would do. I blushed, waiting for her to say something. "Master or a slave?" she finally asked.

My body screamed out for me to proclaim my slavehood, my desire to submit. But my inhibitions were still too strong. I had not yet learned that girls such as I were not allowed inhibitions. "I don't know... it just seems interesting," I managed to mumble.

"Well, if you want to go with me, you'll have to go as my slave," Cristina said cheerfully. The words sent a thrill through my body from deep inside. I realized that I was aroused just thinking about the possibility of going to a club as a woman's slave. I wondered what I would have to do - what I would be allowed to wear, whether I would be collared, or even leashed, whether I would have to serve her as a slave... "Well, what do you think?" Her voice brought me back to reality.

"Are you serious?" I was just trying to buy time to think, but instantly I regretted it... would she withdraw the offer? Had I missed my chance to play out my fantasy? "I mean, I'm open to anything," I said, trying to keep the possibility open.

"OK, I have to go," Cristina said, standing up. My stomach felt empty for a moment. "Think about it. If you want to be my slave, call me by tomorrow morning so we have time to get you something to wear."

"OK, I'll think about it," I said, doing my best to sound assured and, I was sure, failing miserably.

Once Cristina was out of sight, I turned back to the advertisement for the party and considered the enticing, naked slave in the picture, her eyes closed as she lingeringly, tenderly kissed the supple leather of the whip to which she was subject. Or at least, that's what I was thinking. I tried to imagine what it would be like, forced to my hands and knees, my wrists and ankles joined by short lengths of chain, my head pulled upward by the pull on my chain leash, completely nude, open to the visual and physical exploitation of a master. I felt heat between my thighs. I tried to imagine what the club would be like. Most likely, I expected, it would be disappointingly tame - a crowd of yuppies playing at dominance and submission, spoiled brats in fancy leather costumes, mild arousal destined for disappointment. But the possibilities... Perhaps I would be stripped naked before a crowd of people, forced to crawl on the floor and beg to lick their feet. Perhaps I would be made to dance naked before men, desperately trying to interest them in my body until one deigned to make use of it, only then to dance again, until all the men were satisfied. Perhaps I would be thrown over a table, my legs tied apart, to be casually used by any man who so chose.

I knew then that I would go to that club. It was only a matter of gathering up the courage to say that to Cristina.

I gathered up my things and hurried home to my apartment, visions of myself as a slave girl passing through my mind. On my knees, bent over, licking the feet of a master; standing on my toes, my wrists bound high above my head, awaiting the touch of the lash; naked, on an auction block, forced to display my charms openly to a crowd of bidders; kneeling before a man, hands bound behind my back, serving his pleasure. I tried to banish the visions from my mind, but they kept coming back. I had had these thoughts before, but never with this intensity. Before, being a slave girl had been but an idle fantasy, one of the themes I used occasionally when bored and seeking arousal. I would get a mild charge out of seeing a picture of a woman in bondage, but little more; it never seemed a plausible reality. Now, at least for this moment, it seemed my destiny. Cristina had unleashed a flood of emotions whose force I had never suspected. They were sure to be disappointed at the club itself, I expected, but until then, I would give myself up to my fantasy.

By the time I arrived at my small walkup apartment, I was damp between the thighs. I debated momentarily whether it was appropriate for a slave girl to pleasure herself, but ultimately could not resist the temptation, closing my eyes and imagining the strong, powerful master who was forcing himself upon me, raping my body with his manhood, using me mercilessly for his pleasure, then casting me into the arms of another, without a second thought for the girl he had just ravished. I felt their plunging thrusts as they took pleasure in my vulnerable, open, enslaved softness, impressing on me my degraded condition, nothing more than a vessel for their amusement and relaxation. I came as I imagined only a slave girl could, completely uninhibited, without regard for dignity or propriety. When the imaginary warriors had finished with their plaything, she was a small, spent bundle of slave flesh lying exhausted on the now-damp sheets of her summer-in-Europe futon.

Deeply embarrassed, and thankful that no one could see my condition, I took a shower and decided there was no way I could go the club.

The next morning, however, I found myself dialing Cristina's number. Several times I made it partway through the digits before hanging up. When I finally had the courage to press the last button, I found myself praying for her answering machine. After five rings, I began to relax. Then her voice answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Uh, hi, Cristina, this is Jennifer."

"Who?"

"You know, Jennifer."

"Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. What do you want?"

"Well, about going to that club tonight,..."

"What club?"

"You know, the one with that event tonight." Silence. "The Bondage Ball."

"Oh, yeah. What about it?"

"Well, yesterday, you said that maybe we would go. And... well, I think I would be interested in seeing what it's like."

Silence. "You want to go as my slave?"

Now it was my turn to be silent. "Yes," I whispered. Although I was only agreeing to accompany her in the role of a submissive to a club, I knew that inside I was admitting something much deeper and more significant.

"You'll be my slave tonight?"

"Yes." Silence. "I'll be your slave." There. I had said it. It was out in the world, and someone had heard it. I was not what people thought me to be - a smart, well-educated, independent, free woman. Instead, I was something else - a naked slave girl asking for the collar of a master. I felt the now-familiar surge of arousal as I contemplated the idea. There was silence on the other end. Perhaps Cristina was wondering if I would make an acceptable slave - wondering how I would look chained nude at her feet, or how skillful I could be with my mouth and hands, or what my resale value could be, appropriately displayed to assembled masters.

"Well, OK," she said. "Come over to my apartment around nine tonight."

"Thank you," I said, before realizing it was completely inappropriate. Or maybe it was appropriate that a slave should thank her mistress. "What should I wear?" I had visions of bikinis, miniskirts, sheath dresses,...

"Oh, don't worry about that," Cristina answered. "I'll find you something appropriate."

"OK. Well, see you tonight."

"See you," she said. "Get plenty of rest." And then she hung up.

I resisted the urge to tear off my clothes and submit myself once again to the use of my imaginary masters, this time resolving to deny myself until tonight. A slave's body, after all, is not her own; it is up to the masters when, or even if at all, she may enjoy its use. Or at least that's how I imagined it must be.

I spent the day wandering around Schoneberg, looking into bookstores and sneaking glances at the "art" photography books showing pictures of bound, naked women. I wondered which of the models I would most resemble tonight when I was myself exhibited to an audience of people I had never met. I returned to my apartment, stripped myself naked, buckled a belt around my neck to take the place of a collar, and posed before my full-length mirror, wondering what that audience would see in me. Would they see just an American college girl playing a role, soon to return to college and law school and a future in mergers and acquisitions? Or would they see something else - a true slave girl, desperate to please, seeking a master to put her in her place, to take away her freedom and impose his will on her, to claim her naked beauty for his own ruthless use? I regarded my body in the mirror. Perhaps men would find me of interest, even if I was not tall, thin, and blonde; I knelt before the mirror, knees spread widely, shoulder pulled back to project my breasts forward, lips half open in anticipation... Yes, I thought a man could find that wanton slut of interest - perhaps the firmness of her full breasts, or the warmth of her mouth, or the curves of her hips and thighs, or the softness of her belly. Or a woman might find her of interest, might find her worthy of a collar and a chain and long nights rendering intimate service with her lips and tongue. I had never been particularly attracted to women, but I knew that it was a master I sought, and whether that master were a man or woman was less important than that he or she would use me as what I was, a plaything to be used and abused, to be enjoyed and cast aside and forgotten. I was almost unbearably aroused looking at myself in the mirror and imagining the indignities and humiliations I might be suffering in only a few hours.