There is no narrative without memory, and so for me the story begins when I woke up on the floor, curled up naked on the carpet at the foot of my queen-size bed. It had been a deep, dreamless sleep. Drool had dried on the corner of my mouth and still soaked part of the shag under my cheek. I was disoriented for several minutes, as one sometimes is upon awakening in a strange hotel room on vacation. The fact that I was seeing my own bedroom from a completely new angle deepened my sense of dislocation: creating the queasy clash of the familiar and the unfamiliar in the same glance.

Shakily I rose to my feet and looked about. Late morning sun streamed in through my un-shaded window. By its light I could see the outline of a figure in my bed. As my eyes focused I could see it was a woman. My mind was just beginning to process how beautiful she was when, without stirring or opening her eyes, she spoke.

“Go make me some coffee. Black with two sugars.”

In a fog of confusion I stumbled to the kitchen and set about brewing coffee, working on autopilot. I stood naked in front of the machine as it percolated, wondering if perhaps I was still dreaming. When the brew cycle finished I poured a cup as I had been directed and returned to the bedroom.

She had seated herself in a chair by the large bay window positioned to fill the room with natural light. Her posture was totally relaxed, like a queen seated upon her throne for the thousandth time. She wore an aquamarine negligee that complimented her bewitching green eyes, on top of a black lace corset with garters and hose (I briefly wondered if she had slept in the latter finery or donned it as I brewed coffee). Her breasts strained against the fabric of her corset arrestingly, and her voluptuously curvaceous legs were crossed so as to draw my gaze like steel to a magnet. Everything about her elicited an atmosphere of sexual urgency, the very air around her seemed to become humid with desire. Despite my general befuddlement my libido came sharply awake. The machinery in my loins quivered in involuntary response to her allure, and though my morning wood had gone flaccid as the coffee brewed, even my embarrassment at her knowing smirk could not prevent my cock from stiffening visibly as I handed her the mug I had prepared.

She sipped the coffee and took a moment to assess its flavor. “Adequate,” she finally pronounced, peering at me enigmatically over the rim of her cup.

I stood mute for a moment, waiting. When it became clear that she would not speak again, I muttered, “Forgive me, but who are you?”

“You know who I am,” she declared.

As soon as she said this I realized it was true. A name floated into my mind. “Goddess Marquesa,” I blurted. She smiled in response. “But…how…why don’t I…” I stammered, groping for words.

“We met last night at the publishing party for your new book,” she said finally, rescuing me from my verbal sinkhole. “I hypnotized you and had you bring me home. Your bed was quite comfortable. I hope sleeping at my feet like a good pet didn’t make you stiff…,” she paused here to let the irony sink in, her eyes resting mischievously on my cock, “…that is, make your back stiff.”

I cleared my throat to cover my embarrassment and tried to will myself to relax. As my eyes repeatedly drifted back to her breasts and legs my reflexes betrayed me, however, so that rather than subsiding, my erection bobbed up and down like a chicken pecking at grain. “Why are you here?” I finally managed to ask.

“I’m a fan,” she said, as if the answer was obvious. “I enjoyed your first two novels, and acquired advance galleys for the one we feted last night. It is your best yet. You are a talented storyteller.”

“Thank you,” I replied reflexively, “but…”

“But there is something missing,” she continued, as if this had been my thought all along. “Your prose tells me things about you that you yourself don’t yet know. I’ve come to teach you about yourself. I’ve come to help you discover your true voice, to make you the writer I know you can be.”

I laughed nervously. “That’s very gracious of you,” I said, “but why would you be so generous?”

“It’s not generosity at all. Your novels reveal that you are what we who understand such things call a ‘submissive.’ You yearn to be controlled, to be owned. I’ve come to give you that gift. When my lessons are complete you will love, worship and adore me. This will put you in touch with your most authentic self. It will make you a great writer, but you will also be my writer. You will write for me and about me, broadcasting my power to other men like you.”

I laughed again, though even to my ears its sound was forced. “I have encountered harsh literary criticism before, but this is something new. Forgive me, however, if I express skepticism.”

“I am a merciful Goddess,” she replied, completely without irony. “I will forgive you…eventually. There will have to be penance, of course.”

“This is rid-…” I began to protest, but she cut me off sharply.

“Look at me,” she ordered. “You can feel the effect I have on you. Even if you weren’t submissive you couldn’t fight your attraction to me. Given your nature, your surrender is just a matter of time.”

I stood frozen in response to this declaration, struck dumb. My mouth had gone dry, my heart pounded in my chest. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Implausible as this whole scene was, while silent seconds ticked by I could not escape the creeping suspicion that every word falling from her enticing lips might be true, a feeling reinforced by the fact that despite my queasy anxiety I could not take my eyes off of her or bring my cock to heel.

“Even if what you say is so…” I finally croaked out, “I can’t let this happen. An  artist must be independent…I have to resist you…”

She laughed. The sound made something deep inside of me quiver with delight. I felt that I could lap up that laugh like nectar, that it might sustain me better than food and drink.

“Yes,” she said. “Resist. I like that. I crave conquest in the same way you yearn to be overcome. We were made for each other.”

“No…” I protested feebly. “I can’t…I…please leave.”

She did not favor this with a reply, but simply rose from her chair in a single, graceful movement. Placing the empty coffee mug on top of my dresser, she walked toward me lithely, each step accentuating the sensual curves of her hips, thighs, and calves and the sway of her breasts. As her scent engulfed me her hand reached up and fondled my right nipple with her long, exquisite fingers. Quaking at her touch, I should have realized how desperate my situation was, but still I clung to hope.

“You can’t control me…” I mumbled, my voice lacking all conviction.

“Oh, but I can,” she said, raking her nails across my flesh as she walked a slow, lazy circle around my naked form. “Controlling someone is easy. It is simply a matter of knowing what makes him tick. You might theoretically be able to resist me, but you can’t resist your own nature.”

With this she disengaged from my body and walked back to the chair, sitting once again in her regal attitude.

“So…” she continued, “…compelling your obedience is simply a matter of reading your mind, and luckily for me you are literally an open book, at least to someone who knows how to read between the lines. The most irresistible command is the one that a man already yearns in his heart to obey. The stronger the longing, the more inescapable the urge to comply.”

Here again she paused and looked at me for several long moments, her brilliant green eyes seeming to bore into my skull. Anticipation hung heavy in the air. I steeled myself, resolved to remain steadfast in refusal.

“If, for instance, I commanded you to worship my legs,” she declared, her eyes smiling, “you would find that order almost irresistible…”

“Yes?” I replied shakily, trying without success to tear my eyes from her gorgeous legs.

“…but if I commanded you to fall to your knees and beg to worship my legs, that would be an order you could not refuse.”

Silence hung for a few moments between us. My eyes widened, I trembled in horror at what was about to happen. Her perfect hand raised slowly from the armrest of the chair, and her long finger arced gracefully in an unambiguous gesture of command, pointing to the floor before her dangling foot.

“Beg,” she intoned, just above a whisper.

My whole body buckled and quivered. My mind reeled. I tried desperately to seize control of my muscles and sinews, but the impulse was too overpowering. A desire welled in me like I had never experienced before, swelling to crowd out every other perception, thought or feeling. Nothing else registered, nothing else mattered. I knew only that I could not live another minute without groveling before that magnificent woman. I needed to plead to her like nothing I had ever needed before.

“Please,” I began, on my knees with my hands clasped before myself before I was consciously aware of having moved, “please Goddess Marquesa…let me worship your legs…”

“That’s a start,” she said, “but you will have to try harder.”

“Oh, please,” I continued, my voice breaking as tears leaked from my eyes. “I would do anything….your legs are so beautiful…so….so….luscious. I’ll die if I can’t touch them…kiss them….Please have mercy…”

She let me continue like that for an hour. My voice grew hoarse and my throat sore, but I could not stop. I was trapped on the horns of a paradox- desperate to touch her, but also desperate to keep groveling at her feet. It was torture and bliss, Heaven and Hell, samsara and nirvana perfectly alloyed.

Finally she gestured for silence. “I must punish you for your insolence,” she said, “but I am feeling frisky and eager to try out my new toy. Make a mental note that I owe you a beating.”

I stared blankly in response to this command, not yet acculturated to the impulses of my own nature. Her slap across my face alerted me to my omission. “Yes, Goddess Marquesa,” I croaked compliantly.

“Good,” she said. “Come, pet. Begin at my ankle and work your way up to my inner thigh.”

I pitched forward and indulged gluttonously in the joy of her flesh, savoring her fragrance in my nostrils, the resilient pressure of her muscles and skin, and the feel and taste of her stocking against my lips and tongue. When I reached the bare patch of thigh above her hose she let me nibble gently for a few moments before grasping a handful of my hair and drawing my face into her groin. Her panties were crotchless, and as I instinctively lapped at her pussy she slid her calf under my twitching cock, inviting me to hump her leg.

After several minutes of exertion, as I felt her tense in ecstasy under my jaw I allowed myself to release, exploding so ferociously that I briefly lost consciousness. Waking with my head cradled in her lap, I did not need to be told what to do. Stooping down, I licked my cum off of her calf and knee. Once finished, I pleaded to be punished. After spending so profusely I did not imagine that I could be aroused again for weeks, but as her hand paddled my ass, my cock became as rock hard as it had been when I first handed her coffee.

She stayed with me for the most poignantly ecstatic, torturous week of my life, teaching me how desperately I needed and adored Her. As She left, with me clinging to Her skirt and sobbing for Her to remain, She commanded me to write, promising that She would return if I pleased Her. I wrote Divine Detective, the first of the Goddess Marquesa mysteries. As She predicted, it was far superior to anything I had ever before achieved. It was a best seller, as have been the four sequels that followed.

I live in a mansion now, with a garage full of expensive cars. None of the success has given me lasting satisfaction, however. I plead with Her to take all of the fortune She granted me, but She will only accept finished work as tribute. Only when a new manuscript is complete does She grant me my heart’s desire, taking Her place in the bed that I keep warm for Her, and allowing me once more to sleep as Her pet at Her feet.

The End