CHAPTER 5
Mara
“Let’s move ontoThe Death of Power,” Dr. Evans said. We shuffled through our materials, looking for our copies. I pulled the book out of Dad’s shoulder-bag—myshoulder bag, I should say. The copy was a rental, but you could hardly tell with the sticky-notes fanning out of the pages.
“Page one-hundred-and-thirteen,” Dr. Evans said. “Jessica, please read.”
“When one gives up their power, crawling to destiny, therefore ultimately gagging their own beliefs, it demonstrates the control one has.Bowing down before power, accepting fate within the self, one must also accept that there is true influence. That influence is within, and can be extended outwards, but only if Power wishes it. That influence should be offered to Power. Offering to yield one’s control is the birth of power, true Power, itself.”
“Observations?”
I opened my mouth, but another student blurted out his ideas. Once there was a break, I cut in. “I want to build on that,” I said. “The word choice ofrebirth,” I closed the book, then turned next to me, looking at Dr. Evans for the first time since we opened the discussion, “She’s arguing that submission to authority is the key to power within the self, which can also be power over others. Perhaps even over the authority figure.”
“Go further than that,” Dr. Evans said, his eyes focused on me. “Is it simply about submission? Or is it more than that?”
My breath caught in my throat.Is it simply about submission?Hearing him say that felt like he was implying something else, something beyond the text. Submission was so much more than the act of giving up power, wasn’t it? Of surrendering yourself to desire.
…which is what Florence Berkley, the author of the text, was arguing. She had been my favorite theorist since I had taken my first critical theory classes back in undergrad. But that didn’t mean that pulling apart these texts was easy for me; it was still hard. But IknewFlorence Berkley. I had written countless essays on her work and had been excited to see this text on the reading list.
And damn it, I really needed to focus on the text. I faced forward, not wanting to look at him. Not wanting to acknowledge how it made me feel to talk about these things with a man who had spanked me in a dungeon. An authority figure.
“Destiny,” I said. I could feel his eyes on me, and before I could stop myself, I was looking at him again. We were so close. I could feel the heat from his legs near mine. Why had sitting next to him been one of his requirements? It was torture. “It’s about how power defines destiny. We must crawl with our destiny, and give ourselves to it.”
“Crawling with, or crawling to, Mara? It’s a distinction we must make,” Dr. Evans said. The word ‘crawling’ on his lips made my stomach flutter. Crawling, like I had seen a few people do at that club. Like that woman on the leash. The club I had seen him at. Where he had touched me. Hit me.
“I don’t know about with or to,” I said quickly, “But there’s something about denial and sacrifice here.”
“Is it about denial?” Dr. Evans asked. He looked at the rest of the students, but no one moved. Everyone was staring at us, as if we were battling it out on the field. “Denial is about refusing. Refusing the truth. Refusing the physical. Refusing desire.”
Refusing desire. Refusing to remember the way it had felt to feel his breath on my ear. His words on my skin. I took a deep breath.
“She saysyielding one’s control,” I said.
“She writes,Offering to yield one’s control,” he corrected me. “Now,offeringis different. It’s an outward act. It gives. The text is not simply about denial. It’s about sacrifice.”
I shook my head. “All of the text points directly to denial of the self,” I argued. “Giving up, gagging words, bowing down.”
“Bowing down is a deliberate act.”
We stared at each other for a moment, and it felt like we weren’t talking about the text at all. There was something else going on, something neither of us was going to admit. Was he making me bow down to him? Was he implying that yielding my control to him was my destiny?
Why was I even thinking that he was talking about us? About me? And why the hell did he smell so damn good?
“You can be forced to bow down,” I said. Like Dr. Evans had forced me to do his work for him. The truth of the teacher’s assistant was that we were slaves for professorial grunt work.
Slaves.
But he hadn’t forced me to do the spanking demonstration. Far from it. I had let him.
Not even that. I had asked him to. Told him to do it again. Commanded it. Begged for it.
A deliberate act.
“You can be forced to bow down,” Dr. Evans said, “but there’s no mention of force in Berkley’s text. There is acceptance—”
“And gagging,” I interrupted. I bit my tongue. He paused for a moment, staring at me.
“And gagging,” he continued, the tension thick between us. “And offering. It’s about sacrifice, is it not?”
