True Submission

by Claire Thompson

  “Eloquently put, my dear. I ‘buy’ women, from time to time, because it’s expedient. I travel a lot, and often it’s appropriate to bring a date to a function, but I don’t know anyone in town. I’ve made connections in various cities with men who can supply what I’m looking for. Attractive women who will escort me to my boring business functions, and then maybe tuck me in at night, if you know what I mean. Generally, I prefer a woman nearer to my age, at least half my age, for god’s sake. I don’t know what Mundy was thinking this time.”

  “Well, I’m legal. I’m almost twenty.”

  Frank grinned and said, “I have socks older than you.” His face suddenly crumpled and he looked very old to Ashley as he whispered, “Get out of this business, Ashley. This is no place for you.”

  Now, four years later, Ashley smiled into the mirror as she recalled dear, gentle Frank. How much time had passed and how many men had she lain with since that chaste first evening? Never again did a man refuse her “charms”, as Frank had called them.

  Most of the men Greg set her up with were in their forties and fifties. They knew what they were paying for and expected to get it. With Ashley’s natural beauty and grace and the help of her makeover, which she learned to maintain herself, she presented as a lovely, poised young woman. She didn’t talk much, but her “dates” didn’t seem to mind. They weren’t interested in her mind. She was a trophy to take out on the town, and then a piece of meat to fuck when the night was over.

  It became a routine and Ashley didn’t resent it, at least not much or at least not consciously. Her life had been such that she had never come to expect anything different. And the way Greg explained it, she was earning her keep. She’d be dead without him, as he reminded her repeatedly.

  Occasionally crack cocaine whispered her name, but she would just shake her head and wait for it to pass. The memory of her own near-death would always remain sharp in her mind—a memory of aching in her bones. After that one brandy with Frank, Ashley didn’t even drink alcohol. She’d watched a show on TV about addiction and recognized herself in what she saw. The brandy could lead to more, back down the path toward dependence, misery and death.

  Though life hadn’t dealt her very good cards, Ashley had a natural survival instinct. This setup with Greg wasn’t ideal, but it sure beat the alternative, which as she saw it was life on the streets and certain death.

  Life was pretty good, really. When Greg didn’t drink, things went okay. He left Ashley pretty much to herself. She was almost like a housewife or what she imagined a housewife to be, except that four or five nights a week she was expected to let strangers fuck her for pay. During the days, she shopped for food, cooked for Greg, kept the house clean and entertained herself.

  For the first couple of years Ashley only watched TV or went to the occasional matinee movie by herself. Greg never took her out, and it was understood that theirs was a business relationship, not personal.

  In fact, at first she used to feel almost bad or at least weird that he had never tried to hit on her. Since she had first begun to develop a figure, boys and later men had always been after her body. She was used to that sort of interaction and had even come to expect it. She wondered from time to time why Greg continued to let her stay in the guest bedroom and never tried to sneak into her bed or let her know he expected “that sort” of payment for his kindness.

  When the reason came out why he hadn’t touched her, the stunning cruelty of his remarks left her literally breathless. It was about a year into their “arrangement” and she was standing at the sink washing dishes, not yet dressed for her evening’s work. Greg came up behind her and pressed his body against hers.

  Ashley stiffened, thinking, Ah, here it is at last, but otherwise didn’t respond. She could smell the scotch on his breath and had learned that, as with her father, it was best to be still and quiet when a drunk man focused his attentions on you.

  Greg spoke in a low voice, perhaps meant to be sexy, but it came out slurred and gravelly. “Hey, whore. I could fuck you now. Bet you’d like that, huh? To have a realman, not someone who has to pay for it? Yes, you’d like that. To feel my big, hard dick finally filling you up right.”

  Ashley tensed, her heart starting to pound. A sudden image, unbidden, flashed in her mind of his stubby cock, as she imagined it, forcing its way into her dry passage. She shifted a little, moving her bottom so his erection was no longer pressed against it.

  That was a mistake.

  “Oh, pull away from me, eh? Like you don’t want it. You’re nothing but a whore. You spread your legs when I say so. I own you.” He spun her around so they were facing each other and leaned up, his breath sour in her nostrils.

  “You know why I’ve never fucked you, bitch? Because I’d sooner put my dick in a blender than stick it in your nasty snatch. You were a skank when I picked you up and you’re no better now. Don’t flatter yourself that those johns wear rubbers for you. It’s to protect themselves from your nasty diseases. Who knows what seething germs are waiting to erupt inside of you. I just know I’ll never catch them. I’ll just use you as my whore ‘til I use you up.”

  Ashley had turned pale, her eyes wide with horror at his words. It felt like someone had kicked her in the chest and she couldn’t get her breath for a moment. The only thing she had of value, so she felt and so men had always told her in her short life until now, was her body. And this man, this man who controlled her every move, was telling her that her body was filth—that he’d sooner have his cock mangled and bloodied than put it inside of her.

  Ashley burst into tears, running from the kitchen to the safety of her room. Mercifully, he didn’t follow, instead getting more ice for his drink and turning up the football game on the TV.

  As she lay crying, the insult of his words ripped through her, drawing more tears. Then for some reason, the old nursery rhyme about sticks and stones drifted in her mind, providing a backdrop to some rational thoughts that made the tears slow to a trickle and finally cease.

  First of all, she wasn’t diseased, at least she didn’t think so. Somehow, she’d survived the streets intact, once she’d broken her addiction, and now she generally felt physically fit and well. She had known some guys with AIDS and they were always sick and miserable, with bad skin and their ribs sticking out. She didn’t even get colds.

  So the first thing was that Greg was just fucking with her mind. She would just ignore him and let his words slide right off her. Second of all, she reasoned silently, it was agood thing that he didn’t want to touch her. She didn’t particularly like sex and she didn’t find Greg attractive. At five foot six, he stood one inch shorter than she. He wasn’t fat, but he wasn’t especially well-built. His arms and shoulders were powerfully muscled, but he had a potbelly and his legs were scrawny. She didn’t like his pale coloring or sandy-reddish hair. He just didn’t fit her masculine ideal, if she had one, and yet she knew she wouldn’t have resisted him if he’d forced himself upon her.

  Happily, this threat was removed and by himself. So what if he didn’t want her. That was a good thing. As she washed her face in cool water, she tried to smile at herself in the mirror. She really had a pretty good life. Her own bathroom, for heaven’s sake, and a closet full of pretty clothes. Whether it was optimism, fatalism or sheer survival skills, Ashley put the best face on her situation and went to pick out her clothing for the evening.

  Again her musings on the past were interrupted by Greg, now looking at himself in the mirror beside her, flexing his muscles and turning from side to side like some Mr. Universe contestant.

  “Like I said, this guy is top-notch, so don’t try to be clever and talk or anything. You and me, we know you’re just a stupid bimbo, but they think they’re getting class when we get you dressed up. This guy is a CEO and if he likes you, he might send a whole shitload of business our way. I’ll have to go find more little crackheads on the street to nurse back to health. Get myself a little brothel going. Yeah, that’s what I should do.�
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  Ashley didn’t respond, of course, but quickly finished applying her makeup. For some reason she felt bone-weary tonight. She was almost twenty-four with nothing to show for herself. She was essentially the indentured servant of a pimp. If she tried to leave, he would hunt her down and kill her. He’d promised her that the one time she’d tried to outsmart him, and she believed him.

  Despite her own efforts to shut out the memories of that horrible night, the images played silently in her mind for the thousandth time as Greg rambled on about his bigwig CEO and how she’d better play her cards right.

  It was a night not unlike this one. She was scheduled to meet the guy at his hotel. There wasn’t the usual preliminary dinner to attend, which was fine with Ashley. She hated the charade of acting like something she was not, and the conversations invariably bored her to tears.

  Just let the guy fuck her and get it over with. Maybe she’d get a tip. Greg still handled the transactions on his own, just sending her out for her “assignments”, but he did permit her to keep her tips, such as they were. She’d managed to squirrel away several thousand dollars over the past four years, which she kept hidden in a tampon box.

  When it came time to get ready, for some reason that night Ashley just couldn’t face another trick. She didn’t want to spread her legs for some stranger with a condom on his dick, aided by male-enhancement drugs so he could strut his stuff and pretend she was his lover instead of his paid whore. A thought she rarely allowed herself to entertain popped into her head.

  I hate Greg.

  Did she? Usually Ashley convinced herself that without Greg she’d still be on the streets or worse, dead. She knew he wasn’t the nicest guy in the world and had a bad temper when crossed, but didn’t he keep her well-fed, with lots of pretty new clothes and the best spa treatments?

  In a moment of blunt honesty, she admitted to herself that he didn’t do any of that for her. She was like a show horse. He was just maintaining his investment. Since he’d corralled her as his whore he’d quit his job, instead spending his days doing day trades online with the money she earned for him.

  What had given rise to this discontent of hers?

  It was the books—her secret and coveted novels. They were messing with her head. And yet, she wouldn’t have given them up, not for anything.

  Ashley hadn’t grown up around books and education was something to get through so you could move on. Both her brothers and she herself had dropped out of high school. Though she was naturally intelligent and curious, these qualities were derided rather than encouraged in her home and she herself had never placed much value on them. It was street smarts that let you survive, not book smarts.

  So how did these books come to find her—to claim her imagination?

  She knew the precise day—the exact moment. It had happened one morning in the supermarket. The picture on a paperback caught her eye. A tall statuesque woman with long red hair stood on the cover, her eyes flashing, her barely covered breast heaving. She was holding a sword and she looked powerful and in control. The image arrested Ashley who wasn’t used to thinking of women as strong and empowered.

  Pausing in front of the book, she read the title—Warrior Princess of Alvadon.

  Intrigued, she picked up the paperback, feeling the raised ridges of the artwork on the cover with her finger, admiring the bold expression on the woman’s face.

  Flipping the book over she read the back of it, which promised a tale of intrigue and sexual adventure. But instead of a man at its center, this book was about a strong, confident woman, a princess who knew what she wanted and apparently was willing to fight for it. What a wonderful fantasy, Ashley decided. She held the book a moment longer. Slowly she put the book back on the rack and wandered off to find the green beans.

  As she pushed her cart through the store collecting what she needed for the week, her thoughts kept returning to the redhead on the cover brandishing her sword. She found herself wondering what adventures that princess would have and if she would manage to win out over the men in her life who would no doubt try to put her down.

  You could buy it and read it.

  The thought slipped into her head and actually startled Ashley who hadn’t read a book since tenth grade when she’d had to for an English class. She laughed the thought away at first, but as she was checking the price of the hamburger meat, the thought came again, this time more insistent. Why not? You don’t have to read it all if you don’t want. It’s cheap enough. You have the money. Go on.

  Yes. She would. It might be more fun than just watching the talk shows and soaps on TV, which usually bored her anyway. And so, the warrior princess slipped her way into Ashley’s shopping basket. She quickly hid the thick paperback in her room when she got home. Though she doubted Greg would care whether she read a book or not, somehow she wanted to keep it secret. To savor it alone, without his comments or derision.

  That night she had no “assignment” and Greg, happily, had gone out to shoot pool. After she had cleaned the kitchen and finished the laundry, Ashley went to her room and pulled the novel from its hiding place beneath her pillow. Again, she stroked the shiny cover and then sat back, opening the book to its first page.

  When Greg had returned close to midnight, Ashley had looked up in surprise at the sound of his key in the lock. How had it gotten so late? She had lost herself for over three hours in another world—a world of adventure and romance where women were powerful and strong and knew what they wanted. The whole time she had read, she hadn’t once thought about Greg or her life as a prostitute or even what she should cook tomorrow for dinner. She had been swept into a fantasy and now as she heard Greg stomping about and opening the refrigerator, she wished she never had to come out of that fantasy.

  In fact, the reading was slow going, as her skills were rusty and her vocabulary limited. She found herself annoyed when she didn’t know the words but still she absorbed enough to follow the storyline. The next day she purchased a little dictionary to keep by her side as she read. Words like primordial, assignation, entranced, heaving, cognizant were no longer mysteries. She would whisper the words softly to herself, liking the feel of them on her tongue, and then she would read the sentence again, this time armed with knowledge. It felt good. She felt empowered in her own little way as time went on.

  Slowly a collection of romances piled up under her bed, and then she branched out a little, trying some of the bestsellers and finding that she liked them too, even though they weren’t exclusively about strong, sexy women having adventures, which remained her first love.

  An odd thing happened as the weeks and months passed and her head was filled with knowledge of other lives, other possibilities. For the first time, she began to question in her own mind if she really did have no choice in her life. If she really was bound to Greg because he had “saved” her, or if maybe she, like the romance novel heroines, could somehow strike out on her own.

  As it has done for many others, literature was opening worlds for Ashley that she might never have discovered on her own. And it was giving rise to discontent. And this was dangerous, as she was to discover.

  That fateful night, Greg had lined up a job with Alvin Stockton whom Ashley hated. He was one of the few men Ashley had any feeling for at all. Usually she felt a supreme indifference. As much of an object as she was to these men, they were the same to her—something to be endured and handled as efficiently as possible so she could get out of there.

  But Stockton was different. Ashley’s aversion to him had been instant from the moment he’d smiled his yellow-toothed leer at her, his jowls quivering and a trace of spittle on his lower lip as he eyed her like a piece of candy.

  “Perfect,” he’d murmured as he looked her up and down. She’d dressed in the white blouse and red miniskirt as Greg had instructed her. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail with a red bow and she wore very little makeup. Stockton apparently liked his girls young and innocent. She was used to that, as men oft
en liked the fantasy that they were fucking a teenager.

  But Stockton wasn’t just interested in youth. He was interested in defiling that youth. In “knocking her down a peg or two”, as he liked to say. Stockton liked to verbally torment and humiliate Ashley. To call her names like cunt and whore and tell her she was a nasty, dirty piece of shit. Once he’d even spit on her pussy, just before he pressed his big cock into her, the condom hanging off its tip like an old man’s sleeping cap. His treatment worked, making Ashley feel degraded and ashamed.

  She had even dared complain to Greg about him, something she rarely did. “Is he beating you? Is he damaging the goods?”

  “No, but—”

  “But nothing. As long as he doesn’t make bruises on my property, I don’t give a damn what he does to you. Just spread your legs and do your job. He puts food in your mouth and a roof over your head. You should thank him for whatever he does to you, as long as he pays me. Got it, stupid?”

  This particular night she was assigned to meet Stockton for the third time at his hotel. “He’s booked a double session,” Greg had told her. “Whatever he does to you, he must really get off on it because he told me he wants four hours tonight. Says he wants to take his time.”

  Ashley’s belly had gripped with revulsion at the thought. She thought of Princess Aleda of Alvadon. She would have cut Stockton’s dick off. After she cut his tongue out for his impudence. Yes, impudence. She liked that word, having just learned it the day before. Then the princess would find Greg and press the point of her sharp sword against his cowardly throat.

  Ashley thought of Marlo Stevens, the young heroine she was currently reading about. Marlo came from a background not unlike her own, yet she had managed not only to finish high school but to go on to college and law school. Now she was fighting crime in the inner city, saving girls in the courthouse with her eloquent legal arguments, and finding them new jobs and apartments in her spare time. Ah, to be like Marlo. Making it on her own, instead of at the hands of someone like Greg…