Happy with my self-reassurances, I turned on the water and stepped into the shower. Luxuriating in the hot water, I considered my body in a new light. I had always thought myself pretty, but had never given serious thought to how men - or women - might evaluate my naked body as a source of sexual pleasure. I smiled. It might have been my first time, but I was sure that at least some men had found me of interest as a sexual object. I was still deeply humiliated by Stefan's outright refusal to take advantage of my shamelessly offered charms, but surely few men could have turned down the opportunity I had presented. I supposed I was lucky that he was one of them. I wondered how I would feel now if I had truly been help from behind and brutally, forcibly taken, perhaps over and over, of if I had felt and tasted the seed of multiple men on my tongue.

I turned off the water, toweled myself off, and picked up the phone to call Cristina. Suddenly I was overcome with doubt. What would she say to me? Would she still treat me as her slave and demand my unquestioning obedience? Had she lost all respect for me? Could she only see me as the soft, helpless, willing slut I had played last night?

But there was nothing else to do, short of calling locksmith to pick the lock on my collar. I dialed her number and waited, not breathing. She picked up the phone. "Hallo?"

"Hi, Cristina, this is Jenny."

"Oh, hi, Jenny," she said enthusiastically, "how are you feeling today?"

"Great," I said, not sure how she would take that. "I mean, last night was quite an experience."

"You really seemed to be enjoying yourself," Cristina asked innocently.

I wasn't sure how I should answer that one - I couldn't deny it, but I needed to appear the confident, free-spirited person I tried to be. I settled on "Yes, it was very interesting to play that role. Thanks for letting me try it out."

"You seemed to take to it very naturally," she answered. "Stefan said you took it very seriously."

So she knew. She seemed to be giving me the benefit of the doubt, at least. I decided to drop the subject.

"Anyway, you forgot to give Stefan the key to my collar. Can you come over here and unlock it for me? It's a little embarrassing," I said. Now that was an understatement. Less than a visible sign that actually would not have been terribly remarkable in certain districts of Berlin, it was more a constant reminder of the slave girl who had so comfortably inhabited my body the night before, and who lay just below the surface of my current demeanor.

"Well, I'm terribly busy today, and I don't really have time to come over to your neighborhood," Cristina said. "Why don't you meet me on my way?" she asked. "I'm going to be in Prenzlauer Berg around lunchtime and we can meet at the caf . Say at 1:30."

"OK," I said, not wanting to admit my embarrassment. "I'll see you then."

"Great," she answered. "See you."

I spent the next couple hours puttering around my apartment, trying unsuccessfully not to think about my upcoming encounter with Cristina. Our relationship had seemed quite normal during the call, except for the scarcely-hidden implications of her casual remarks. Did she think I was a natural slave? What did she think of the fact that I had shamelessly offered my body to Stefan, pleading on my knees like a slut? I imagined her forcing me to strip off my clothes at an outdoor table and kneel at her feet, occupying my tongue with the work of cleaning the dust off her boots. But I knew I had no choice. I would have to confront her at some point.

I decided to dress in as un-slave-like a fashion as possible. I put on jeans, a T-shirt from a 10K I had run a few months before, and a UCLA sweatshirt, wrapped a dark silk scarf as best I could around the steel collar, and pulled my hair back into a ponytail. I wore no makeup at all. Looking in the mirror, apart from the somewhat incongruous silk scarf, I saw a completely normal, well-adjusted college student. Steeling my resolve, I left the apartment and got on the U-bahn for Prenzlauer Berg.

When I got to the caf , Cristina was already seated at an outdoor table, casually sipping a cappuccino and looking over what looked like photographs. As I approached, she put them back in a large envelope, rose, and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. "Hello, my little slave," she said with a wink and a smile, as if it were all pleasant joke among friends.

"Hello, mistress," I tried to say with the same casual air. She indicated a seat to me and I took it.

"I had a really good time last night," Cristina began. "I trust you did, too?"

I responded with the line I had worked on in the subway on the way over. "Yes, I did. I've always liked trying new things, and this was definitely new. I'm not sure I would do it again, but I'm glad I did it."

"I think you liked it a bit more than that," Cristina said with a knowing smile. "I'm not sure I've ever seen a girl as heated as you were bound to that table. Although that was probably nothing compared to when Stefan took you home." There was silence. Luckily, Cristina changed the subject. "Hey, look at these," she said, pushing the envelope toward me.

I opened it and pulled out a small stack of black-and-white 8x10 photos. I gasped. There I was, wearing the slave's clothing that Cristina had given me to ward, licking the boots of doorman on a public street. Then I was kneeling at the table where Cristina and her friends were happily chatting, my head down, my knees spread. Then I was bent over and bound to that leather table, my body completely exposed to the camera. Then I was seen from the front, my lips wrapped around the whip handle that Cristina was thrusting deep into my mouth.

I looked up. "Where did you get these?" I asked.

"Oh, the guy who runs the club is a friend of mine. He usually has a photographer take a few pictures of the star attractions. You should be happy. He clearly thought you were one of the hottest girls there last night." I couldn't speak, too shocked by the idea that last night's adventure in submission had been recorded for posterity. "You're really quite beautiful as a slave," Cristina said, smiling again. "Much more than in those heavy clothes and silly ponytail."

"What are you going to do with the pictures?" I asked, as a new fantasy rapidly unfolded in my head, in which I was blackmailed into becoming Cristina's personal slave, or perhaps the property of the club itself, constantly available to any of its guests. I had reached the point where I had been tied again to that same table, but now was being used repeatedly by one man after another when Cristina interrupted my horrifying yet fascinating reverie.

"They're for you," she said. "I thought you might want them as ... as a souvenir."

"But what about the negatives?"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Cristina said dismissively. "My friend is extremely discreet. The last thing he wants is a reputation of exploiting the people who pay his cover charges and buy his drinks. If he put those pictures up on the Internet, people would stop going to his parties."

That felt like a rather paltry measure of security to me, but I decided there was little I could do about it. For all I knew, he had a right to take the pictures, as I had freely entered his club dressed the way I did, and had freely engaged in the activities I was now shocked to contemplate in images. "Thanks, I guess," I said. "By the way, " I continued as casually as I could, "did you bring the key for my collar?"

"Yes, I did," she answered, "but there's one favor I'd like to ask in exchange."

"What is it?" I asked, not sure if I wanted to hear the answer.

"I've been invited to a dinner party on Tuesday, and I wanted to know if you would go as my date?"

"As your date?"

"Well, actually, each person has to bring a slave." The words struck deep into my heart and body. I could feel warmth beginning to simmer between my thighs. "You would just have to act like a slave, just like last night," she continued reassuringly. "Everyone will know you aren't really a slave."