Kitten and the Wolf

Here's a romantic rough-love fantasy about a woman in a position of authority - a lioness - who is harboring a kitten within. A few days before Thanksgiving, her inner kitten is finally going to get the attention it deserves. Background note: Most American universities employ an "up or out" promotion system: after five years on the job, a young professor is either granted tenure (a lifetime appointment) or fired. Tags: Kitten, Oral sex, Straight sex, Anal sex, Bondage, Whipping.

*****

1. Prologue: Breaking Bad News

"So the Promotion and Tenure Committee will say no," he said. "and I'll have a year to find another job."

"That's what will probably happen," I said.

"Despite the fact that the Chemistry Department voted to grant me tenure."

"It was a weak vote," I said, holding his gaze, "a bare majority. Tenure is a lifetime commitment for the university, and that makes the committee cautious - they like a two thirds vote or better."

"They've been known to give tenure to other candidates with weak votes," he said. Though his words were challenging, his tone was conversational.

I said, "If a department chair can make a plausible case that some votes were motivated by prejudice, rancor, or anything but the candidate's merits, we can sometimes get a weak vote through the committee. That's not the case with you. You don't have enemies, and your work hasn't stirred up controversy. You don't belong to a disadvantaged group. You're a man in a male-dominated discipline."

Nothing could have been more obvious than that Rob was a man. He was lean and fit, with dark brown hair and a fashionably close-cropped beard, impeccably dressed, as usual, in a light-gray suit with a silver tie. I had sometimes wondered how much of his salary went for clothing. Right now his manner was disconcerting. Usually, when I break bad news to a candidate for tenure, I see tears, or anger, or numb hopelessness, but Rob was the same as ever - relaxed, self-assured, smiling warmly, as if we were talking pleasantly about mutual friends, not the likely end of his career as a professor.

Still I followed my script. "I'm very sorry," I said. "I know this must come as a shock to you."

His smile became wider. "Oh, no," he said. "It's no surprise. I know my own strengths and weaknesses - and when you told me where we were meeting for dinner, I was sure. Maybe you don't know what the junior faculty say about you: the fancier the dinner, the worse the news - and this is a five-star restaurant."

I noticed now that he'd been eating heartily. I was the one who was picking at my dinner.

He continued, "Frankly, I'm a little relieved. The life of a research scholar isn't much to my taste - I had no idea I'd have to spend so much of my time writing grant applications. I've enjoyed the teaching, though. Lecturing to three hundred students at a time, guiding them, instructing them. I seem to have a talent for getting people to do what I want them to, and it gives me a sinful amount of pleasure."

The warmth of his smile went up another few degrees, and my stomach gave a little lurch.

"Your teaching is beyond excellent," I said, recovering, I thought, rather gracefully. "And I'll add, as one of a handful of women in the Chemistry Department, that I appreciate the way you create an atmosphere that's welcoming for your women students."

His smile got wider and his eyes sparkled. "I like women," he said. "My dream job would be teaching at Smith or Wellesley. But I think I'll look for something in business. I can easily find that kind of job here, and I'd rather not move to another city."

"I'm going to miss you," I said. I really meant it, too, though I didn't think he'd guess the reason. The man was a joy to look at.

"Thanks," he said. "I'll miss you too - and I don't think I can say that about any of my other colleagues."

I blushed a little, thinking I should slow down with the wine and banish foolish notions from my head - he had to be ten years younger than me.

"Listen," he said. "It's Tuesday night, and Thanksgiving break starts tomorrow. No one expects either of us to show up at the department till Monday. Why don't you come for a drink with me? My favorite place is right around the corner. I promise not to get drunk and maudlin. The news you've given me is . . . well, liberating, and I'm in the mood to celebrate."

He dialed up that smile a little more. I knew this was a dumb idea - I'd just fired this man - or at least I'd told him I wouldn't lift a finger to save his career. But I'd been tense all afternoon, knowing what I had to tell him, and I could really use one more glass of wine. And he'd been so damned nice about this - he'd made it almost easy. And he wasn't inviting me home to murder me; we were going to a bar or another restaurant, where there'd be plenty of people around. What could go wrong?

"Thanks," I said. "I'd love to."

I had hardly eaten - I didn't have much of an appetite - and he was finished. We decided against dessert and coffee. He glanced in the direction of the waitress, who hurried over: had she been watching him? "Would you bring the check, please?" he asked. The smile she gave him suggested that she would do much more than that for him if he'd only ask. He didn't, however, and within a few minutes she was back with a tray.

"Hand it over, Rob," I said with a frown. "It's on the department's tab."

He pushed the tray over to me with a sheepish look, and I laid my credit card on top of it.

2. Aspiring Kitty

Within a few minutes we were on the sidewalk. The place he had in mind really was right around the corner, but it didn't look like a bar or restaurant. All I could see from the street was a polished oak door with a brass knob, set into a carved stone entryway at the top of three marble steps. I looked for a sign identifying the place, but I didn't see one.

"It's a club," Rob said, and pulled a brass knob, ringing a bell. A distinguished older man, dressed in a tailcoat, white bow tie, and white gloves, opened the door, smiled warmly, and said, "Good evening, Professor Faulkner." He moved back to let us in.

"Good evening, Boswell," said Rob, took my arm, and led me inside. He turned to the man and said, "This is Professor Redd, R-E-D-D. She's my guest tonight."

"Very good, sir. I'll make a note."

Rob led me along a hallway lined on either side with paintings of men and women in dress of various periods from the eighteenth century to the present. Most of the people were wearing masks like what you'd wear at a costume ball. Some were holding exotic weapons - maces, halberds, axes. I didn't recognize any of them. We passed several oak doors, smaller versions of the one that opened onto the street, before coming to an open door that led into a large room furnished with comfortable chairs and tables, and a bar at the far end. Rob showed me to a table for two near the left wall. He held a chair for me, and I sat.

"What'll you have?" he asked.

"A Pinot Grigio would be nice," I said.

He went to the bar, and I looked around the room. There were few people here. A couple was sitting at a table across the room, the man portly and dressed in a conservative gray suit, the woman, young and pretty save for a livid scar on one cheek, in high heels and a skimpy black dress with mesh sides - she was talking to the man earnestly, but he seemed to be paying little attention. Two men were chatting at the bar.

The room was richly decorated. The bar was polished mahogany with a shiny brass rail, the walls paneled in oak. On a large rack mounted high on one wall was a collection of whips - a bullwhip, a cat o' nine tails, several riding crops in different sizes, and others I couldn't name. Another rack held a selection of restraints - manacles, cuffs, balls and chains. Lengths of chain were hung on hooks. Along one wall was a large X-shaped cross with cuffs dangling from steel eyes at the upper ends. The artwork here was more disturbing than in the hallway: there were pictures - some paintings, some prints, some photographs - of naked men and women bound in various ways. Some were suspended in ropes, some fettered to walls, some in stocks, some chained in uncomfortable poses.

Rob returned before I'd finished surveying the room. The warmth of his smile did little to allay the uneasiness I now felt.

"This is a disturbing place," I said. "It feels like some celebration of medieval torture - a monument to pain and the destruction of the body." I wondered what kind of man liked to come to a place like this and calmed myself a little with the thought that I was only here for a drink with him.

He said, "Look around this room with a slightly different perspective, and you'll see that it's not about the destruction of the body, but about its glorification, and not about torture, but control."

"But why?" I asked. "Why would anyone want to be chained, bound to a cross, and controlled by somebody else?" I pictured myself cuffed to that cross or chained to the wall, and I was disturbed to feel something stirring inside me - a hint of arousal. I tried to make the disgust I was sure I felt chase it away, but it wouldn't be banished. It occurred to me that I probably shouldn't take another sip of this wine, though it was light and fruity and danced on the palate.

"For pleasure," he said. "For the joy of yielding control of yourself to another person, the bliss of doing what you're told, the ecstasy of entrusting yourself to another's care."

"Or," I said, "the joy of controlling and commanding."

"Yes," he said, "some find pleasure in that, and in controlling oneself and accepting responsibility for another."

A photograph of a woman about my own age caught my eye. She was kneeling in front of a man and wearing nothing but a steel collar attached by a chain to a brick wall; her hands were cuffed behind her. On her face was an expression of adoration and fear.

I had to admit Rob had a point. I was forty-three years old, and I'd given my life to the lab and the university. Like Rob, I seemed to have a talent for getting people to do what I wanted them to do. I'd been in leadership roles as long as I could remember: Student Council president in high school, head of various college and grad school organizations, chair of learned societies, a stint as a dean, and now chair of my department. I had a reputation as a tough lady - even if I did prefer to deliver bad news in five-star restaurants.

But my love life had been a zero. My few lovers had expected and desired the iron lady, the person I was at work. But I didn't want to run my personal relationships the way I ran my lab, my classrooms, or my department. Wasn't I entitled to one area of my life where I could be a kitten instead of a lioness?

But when I'd tried to play the kitten with my lovers, or merely hinted to them that they should take charge in the bedroom, they had responded, at best, with confusion. The lovemaking had been boring, and after a while they'd either left or I'd kicked them out. Though a staunch feminist, I'd found myself wishing at times that I could find an old-fashioned cave man type - or at least someone willing to play that role in the bedroom. Où sont les sexistes d'antan?

Well, maybe I had one here. He was elegant, too - I'd often caught myself watching him stride, assured and graceful, through the hallways and labs of the Chemistry Building. Once I'd observed his class: as he paced the front of the room, lecturing animatedly, his gait put me in mind of a wolf.

A naked man, pink and rotund, burst into the room and pelted towards the bar. As he passed by our table I saw that he had an erection and his back was crisscrossed with long welts. By the time the man reached the bar, the bartender had a bottle of beer ready for him. He picked it up and ran out, penis wagging in front of him like a misplaced tail.

I felt a little surge of anger. "What's going on here, Rob?"

"People are doing things they enjoy. Controlling and being controlled. The club has private rooms for members to play in - though, of course, it's possible simply to come here for a drink, as we have."

"People aren't just being controlled," I said. "That man's been whipped."

"If he was whipped, it's because he wanted to be. This club's most strictly enforced rule is that everything that goes on here must be consensual."

The man in the suit got up and moved towards the door, and the woman in the black dress followed him. She held her head up as she walked, but her eyes were downcast. She was a kitten - I knew it. I felt a stab of envy.

"What do you think they're going to do?" I asked, nodding at the couple as they passed through the door.

"They'll go to one of the private rooms and play," said Rob. "She's a submissive and he's a dominant. He'll control her, and she'll obey him, as long as he respects her limits."

"Will he whip her, do you think?" Something in me hoped he would.

"If that's what they both want."

"Have sex?" I wanted them to have sex, too. He should take her from behind like a tomcat, biting the nape of her neck.

"That often happens, but it doesn't have to."

"Why have you brought me here, Rob?"

"For a drink," he said, "though I confess that I find you beautiful and compelling."

"And ten years older than you," I said.

"Eight," he said, correcting me. "I've done my research, you see."

"And what made you think I might like a place like this?"

"A guess," he said. "Maybe intuition."

As he talked, a couple entered the bar, both middle aged and dressed in black leather. The man was wearing a collar with a leash attached; the woman was holding the leash. He walked one pace behind her, observing her carefully as she led him.

Rob continued, "I decided in any case that I'd trust you with this secret of mine. You handed a good bit of power over to me, back in that restaurant, and now I'm handing it back to you."

"How did I hand over power?" I asked, incredulous.

"When a supervisor tells a man he's out of a job, she gives up her power over him. I may teach for another year, but your authority over me will be purely notional."

It was true. I'd written his last performance evaluation and recommended his last raise. If he decided not to show up for half his classes, there wasn't a thing I could do about it. But I said, "If we were to go to one of those rooms, wouldn't I be returning that power to you?"

"Sort of," he said. "You would obey me for as long as it pleased you to obey. These people are playing. They exchange power, but it's play power, like Monopoly money. A submissive always retains the ability to stop the play. On the other hand, I've revealed to you that I'm a rather kinky character. Some people would despise me if they knew these proclivities of mine." He waved towards the objects and pictures on the wall. "The power that gives you over me is real - you could spread rumors about me and do real damage."

"How often do you bring women here?" I asked.

"Not very. They have play parties here once a month, and sometimes I manage to meet someone. Sex isn't allowed at play parties. I've had a couple of kinky girlfriends, but I'm not a Don Juan."

"Do you always give fake names for the women you bring?"

"Only when I bring department chairs," he said, smiling.

"Have you ever brought a student here?" I asked accusingly.

He smiled. "I was tempted a couple of times in my first year of teaching, but I never did. Undergraduates are pretty, but I don't find them especially sexy."

"You like older women," I said, a question phrased as a statement.

"Women who know what they're doing," he said. "Women mature enough to understand themselves."

Strange how the conversation had moved from the abstract to the hypothetical, and now very near the concrete, and yet he didn't seem to be steering it. Down below, I was feeling tingly and a little wet.

He was relaxed in his chair, legs crossed, one hand in his lap while with the other he toyed idly with his nearly untouched scotch.

I leaned forward and took a sip of my wine. "I'm still your supervisor," I said, "even if that doesn't mean much in an academic department - even if I've given up any real authority over you. I'm not allowed to have sex with you."

"What if I'm the one making the approach?" he said. "If I proposition you, are you allowed to accept?"

"Not really," I said, though I was thinking to myself that no one would know.

"I resign," he said. "Effective immediately."

I said, "You can't do that. You've got to finish out the term."

"You'll have to hire me as an adjunct on Monday," he said, smiling. "And now that we've settled the workplace issue, I'll say what's on my mind. Only once - I'm not going to badger you. I want you to go with me to a private room here and submit to me. I want to rule you, and I want to make love to you. Will you go with me?"

"Are you going to fuck me," I asked, "like Christian Grey?"

"I want to make love to you the way you want to be made love to," he said. "If I'm right in my guess about you, we'll both get tremendous pleasure out of it."

"No bondage," I said, gesturing at the manacles on the wall. "After what I've done to you tonight, I'd be insane to allow you to make me helpless."

"No bondage," he smiled. "Anything else?"

I glanced at the whips hanging on the wall. "Do you use whips?" I asked.

"Sometimes."

"Do you hit hard?"

"If we were to play that way, you'd get to say how hard and when to stop."

"What else should I be worried about?"

"Probably not much. I don't do edgeplay - cutting, scat, things that risk real damage, either physical or psychological. But when I'm demanding that you obey me, some of the fun, for both you and me, is in pushing a bit - getting you to do things you haven't done before, or withholding or delaying things you like. If I push too hard, you can say 'Red' and I'll stop everything. If you want to slow things down, change directions, or pause to talk about what's going on, say 'Yellow' and I'll check in with you."

"Why shouldn't I just say 'Stop' or 'Slow down' or 'Wait a minute'?"

"A lot of people find it a turn-on to say 'Stop' and not mean it. Begging for mercy and not getting any can be incredibly hot. This is a game for people who like their play intense, and with at least an illusion of danger. But if you're more comfortable letting words have their normal meaning, that's fine with me. In that case we won't need safewords - 'Red' and 'Yellow.'"

"Let's let words have their normal meanings for now," I said. "'Stop' means stop." Only after I'd said this did it occur to me that my language - my omission of subjunctives - was committing me to this evening of insanity. I took a deep breath and looked at him. He'd understood me too, and his lips were curled into a gorgeous wolfish smile. I wanted him to take me in his arms and kiss me, though I guessed that he had a lot more in mind than kissing, or even sex.

"Okay," he said. "You can pause the action at any moment to ask questions, make adjustments, change course, or call a stop to the whole thing. If you're ready, I just have to get a key from Boswell."

"Is his name really Boswell?"

"I have no idea. We call the day man Johnson, if that's a help."

I laughed and said, "Go ahead and get the key."

He left, and I looked around the room again. The pictures hadn't changed, but they seemed much more erotic now. The middle-aged man on a leash was sitting on the floor beside his mistress's chair, looking for all the world like a dog. She fed him a nut from a bowl on her table and glanced my way. She gave me a tight little smile, as if we shared a secret, and I smiled back at her. The man turned his head to look at me, but she jerked his leash sharply, and he returned his attention to her.