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"It wasn't much of a fight," I said looking around. I took her question to be rhetorical.
"They were drunk and in a confined space, everything was to my advantage."
"Modest, too," she replied with a tiny feminine smile.
I was not though.
Trouble rode shotgun to a reputation. I did not need to deal with assholes that wanted to prove their manhood; I was too well-trained. Outnumbered, I hurt two of the three guys bad and only their non-student status saved me from arrest. Pressing charges against me would have put the city in a bad light when a busload of witnesses stepped forward to testify the three thugs were assaulting a co-ed when I got involved. Too many businesses depended on the school for the incident not to be smoothed over.
Hospitalizing a drunken frat boy, even in self-defense, would have different results.
"No one I care about will say anything, David," she said seriously. "We've hung out a lot together. They'll think either it's been going on for a while or that I finally decided I didn't want to be 'just friends' anymore. Even if my sisters wouldn't defend YOU, they won't allow a sister's love life to be someone else's entertainment."
She turned her green eyes on me.
Her sorority was the most influential organization in the school. They had the full support of their status-equal brother fraternity. Combined with deep ties to the administration and community, Melisa's sorority did not have to take kindly to open attacks on a sister. My roommate's frat would back off at the first sign of backlash; the least of which would be the University Police raiding every party looking for underage drinkers.
I smiled at her.
We talked about our schedules for the next school year until I had to leave. She walked me to the lab and told me not to be late to my appointment with Professor Ryan. She placed a quick kiss on the base of my neck before walking away. I stared in the direction she left for a good while before going inside.
I left the lab at 2:30pm and visited the student center for a bite to eat before heading to Professor Ryan's office. Rachel was sitting in front of the pizza stand; she said hello as I passed by. She was someone I had wanted from my first day at college. She never gave a hint she held the beginning of a belief that I was male in her pretty blonde head though. Unfortunately, every time I thought I stopped wanting her, I saw her and realized 'Nope, still want her just as badly, maybe more.'
I did not sit to talk to her. I said hello, got a slice, and left. I was reduced to that with Rachel; smile, say hello, and walk away.
I ate on my way to the English department and worked my way to Professor Ryan's office. His door was wide open; I smiled widely as I walked in. He was sitting in his chair facing the door.
"Hello, David," he said. "How are you doing today?"
"I think I'm okay," I replied sitting down at the chair across from him.
He watched me for a few seconds, I watched him back. I did not know what was going on so silence was the best policy.
"Any questions?" he asked me with a voice bordering on the smug.
I stared at him. The foster homes taught me how to be quiet and wait. I waited for years at times, and I could wait for whatever was about to happen.
He took the ring off and tossed it to me.
"Go ahead," he told me.
He watched as I studied it carefully.
The band was not gold like Melisa's; platinum, I guessed, not shiny enough to be silver. The stone was black like an onyx but I did not know rocks well enough to determine if it was. It was a much simpler band, without the etchings on Melisa's ring. The crest on the stone was exceptional. The beauty and detail of the artistry were evident even from a cursory study. I tried to inspect the crest deeply but I could not quite get to where the detail ended. Crest might have been the wrong word; it was more a painting of a gold dragon bathed in red flame. I could not tell if the dragon was reveling in the heat or being consumed.
I stood up, walked to Professor Ryan, and handed the ring back.
I sat down, and looked at him. I wanted to know what it was all about, but we were still dancing. I put it on them to take every first step.
"The rings, mine and Melisa's, are the keys, David," he said, his eyes growing quiet.
"Let me tell you a story," he continued, "Then you tell me if you believe it or not."
"A movement began in ancient Greece, arising from philosophical teachings. Plato wrote about them in his books; the elite. Some men are the center of society driving progress. Society works constantly against them, to hold them down, to protect itself against them."
He stood up to pull down an Ayn Rand book from his shelf. He tossed it at me. I looked at the cover and smiled.
"The mediocre naturally seek to destroy the elite among them," I said tossing the book back. It was not everything the book was about but that part stuck with me.
"Yes, that's how the movement ended," he said staring at the book.
"The masses destroyed the few that banded together, erasing any mention of them," he smiled to himself.
"The movement did not die though, it went underground. Several purges later, the movement's fundamental values changed. Secrecy and survival became more important than power. The profile of the members altered to people that sought to build a network, allowing them to live as they defined life. They sought to ensure their heirs would enjoy the same privilege; a more focused and easier goal to hide from the mediocre."
"An offensive term, don't you think?" I asked. I never thought most people were mediocre, just victims of their ancestors' successes and the loss of new worlds to conquer. At worst, most people were lazy.
"A lot of people find comfort in conformity," he replied seriously. "A girl gets slapped on a bus and only one man stands up. What would you call that man?"
"A fairy tale, like your story," I said smirking.
He smirked back.
"Yes, we think that's how the Brotherhood started. We're confident of the dating around Plato and Aristotle's time, but we're not sure about the rest. The Brotherhood destroyed its own history during some purges to ensure surviving members could not be tracked by rebuilding the past."
"And now?"
"And now what?" he asked me back.
"Melisa's ring is not about living life the way you want to live it." I replied.
"It isn't?" he asked. "The words are different, but the focus is the same, David. Freedom from the pluralist definition of existence."
Those were big words but still words. I waited trying to piece together the incomplete picture he was giving me.
"I'm not one of our historians," he continued. "How about if I do it this way though?"
"Fairy tale or truth?" he asked. "Today there is a Brotherhood of twenty thousand members. Two thousand are what the civilized world would call Dominants. We prefer Brothers. The rest of the membership is made up of Submissives, or our term, Siblings."
"The rings?" I asked.
"There are two kinds of rings. A white ring like Melisa wears is a Sibling ring; the black, a Brother's ring. If a white ring has a crest on it, it means the Sibling has been accepted as the sole responsibility of a specific Brother."
"And the relationship between Siblings and Brothers?" I asked.
"Difficult if not impossible to explain," he replied hesitating. "Only a Sibling can tell you why they wear a ring. The relationships they accept vary from Sibling to Sibling. Let me ask you, most people find the words dominant and submissive to be useful, but what did you think of the Sibling's performance the other day?"
I stopped and thought about Doris Alex's act of pleasure.
"Heinlein's character in 'Stranger in a Strange Land' made women faint from kissing them," I said hesitantly. "One of the female characters said that it was because when he kissed, he wasn't thinking of anything else, not even of kissing her. His entire being centered on the physical act of kissing a woman, a type of focus too intense for her to handle. That's what I thought about Dor... the Sibling. She wasn't thinking about anything; technique, your pleasure, if she was enjoying it or not. She looked as if her existence was your pleasure."
"That's not really submissive as defined by the general population," he told me. "Don't get me wrong, Doris Alexander Smith is exceptional. Other Siblings have a different set of expectations when they desire contact with a Brother."
"Nothing universal?" I asked him.
"Very few will reject a Brother. They may not offer more than physical pleasure, but an outright rejection of any contact is nearly unheard of."
I raised my eyebrows questioningly.
"The only ones I know of occur when a Sibling's crested ring is destroyed accidentally, and she is wearing a plain one. In those situations, a Brother may not know she is unavailable."
"Why two thousand and eighteen thousand?" I asked.
"The maximum number of Brothers is set," he replied, "It probably will not change until the world hits a population over 10 billion. I believe, historically, the most we've ever had is nineteen hundred but that was before the McCarthy Purge. The number of Siblings fluctuates greatly, and is much larger than Brothers because their screening is not as rigorous."
"Screening?"
"You were thoroughly studied before your attention was focused on the rings."
"How did you manage that?" I asked, knowing I was not going to like the answer. He unlocked one of the drawers in his desk, pulled a folder out and pointed it at me before putting it down on his desk.
"David Feather," he recited. "Left at the doorstep of a Catholic Church. Worked your way through the foster care system until you graduated high school. The foster care records all say the same thing; a loner, intelligent, does not get into trouble, but can't be pushed. You joined the military as soon as social services set you loose. They spent a great deal of money training you for tasks not spoken of in polite society. They wanted to keep you, but a young, inexperienced officer made a bad decision in a place that did not forgive them. You didn't kill him but your superiors chose not to thank you for ONLY embarrassing the son of a multi-star general."
"It makes good reading if one is smart enough to read between the lines" he told me. "Your type of personality does not usually develop from a social services program that doesn't work properly. Every step of the way, you've made good decisions, or made your decisions good ones. There are a lot of things in this report worthy of a second look."
I watched him now. I was right; I did not like the answer.
"Don't feel too bad," he told me waving a hand at me depreciatingly. "We've actually been watching you for a long time. You ran across a Sibling in grammar school. She suggested that you be adopted, but few Brother's homes are a family environment for someone not born to the Brotherhood. On the other hand, putting a young Brother candidate in a Sibling home creates the obvious problems of control. We had to let watching you suffice and hope that you were not damaged by our inaction."
"Do all candidates get this much attention?" I asked pointedly.
"Nearly all candidates get more, David," he replied simply. "You were easy; we only had to keep tabs on you. Social services and the military did most of our work. We only needed to get access to the records and reports. Usually we spend an intense two years making sure a candidate will not be a disappointment to other Brothers or harmful to Siblings. If a Brother candidate is born to the Brotherhood, it requires even more time to decide. In those cases, we have to distinguish between reality and a good mimic."
"So you kept tabs on me and that decided you?"
"There was also the psych evaluation you took last year."
I sighed, remembering.
A marketing agency offered me good money for a psych eval. They were 'attempting' to find better ways to market to my age group. I took so many of the damn things in the military I knew most of the questions before the head doctor asked them. It did not take a whole lot for the attractive blonde to get me to sign up. The psychiatrist was also blonde and attractive. There was something about her that made me comfortable, almost like there had been a slight flirtation between us. She called back several times during the next couple of months to get me back in the chair. I was well paid for each visit so I did not give the situation much thought, other than wondering what kind of lingerie the psychiatrist wore. I was sure about the thong and had guessed no bra. Lamentably, she deflected all of my advances.
The door opened.
Melisa walked in wearing a short white summer dress, white sandals, and her hair down. She smiled at us taking the last seat in the room.
She stared at me. I liked the change in outfit so was happy to stare back.
"So what now?" I asked keeping my eyes on Melisa.
"The Brotherhood is extending an invitation; accept a Brother's Ring, David."
"And the last few days were temptation," I said.
"I like to think of myself as temptation," Melisa spoke before Professor Ryan could, "but I don't believe you can be tempted, but an intelligent decision requires the right information."
I nodded.
"Knowledge, David, not temptation. We wanted you to know what you would be turning down if you denied yourself the ring," she continued.
"You?" I asked.
"Yes," she said with sincerity. "Doris. Janet, the pledge you defended on the bus is also a Sibling and believe me she has been scratching the walls to... anyway, every uncrested Sibling."
"Freedom," Professor Ryan said.
He looked at me for a while before he continued, "I think you would be in school much longer and teach if you did not have to worry about other things, like money."
"Knowledge," Melisa whispered.
I looked at her.
"You didn't say all the information," I told her.
"No Brother has all the information, David," Professor Ryan said with finality. "Accepting a ring gives you a right to more, but never all. You will have access to the resources necessary to do what you want to instead of what you have to, though."
"I like to earn my way," I replied.
"You did, David," Melisa said to me. "You will."
Professor Ryan laughed.
"Anything we give you, you earned by becoming someone we want as part of our Brotherhood," he said. "I'm sure you'll put back ten times whatever you use. As much as we tell new Brothers they don't owe us anything, we seem to choose ones that pay it back anyway. There may also be other things you can do for the Brotherhood later."
I spent a minute looking at each of them alternately. They stared back knowing what my answer would be. It is rare that the spider offers to make something trapped in the web another spider.
"So all I do is say yes?" I asked.
Melisa beamed at me. Professor Ryan shook his head.
"Seven Brothers have to interview you. They must make a unanimous decision to accept you."
I raised my eyebrows at him.
"I don't remember anyone failing at the interview or training level."
"Failing? Training?" I interrupted.
"Yes, we would not turn you loose on close to eighteen thousand people who believe a black ring means you have a right to their body upon command. Some Siblings will believe you are a foundation," Professor Ryan said weighing me with his eyes.
"What do you mean foundation?" I asked him.
"Siblings do not just wear a white ring because they have an instinctive desire to be submissive," he replied.
"It's a trade-off for most of us, David," Melisa continued for him. "The Brothers are something we believe in; something we can build out from. A family with more connections. An escape from the real world. There are a lot of different reasons, we like having the Brothers in our lives. For a lot of us, the only price is sex with the kind of lovers we would accept anyway. Even that can be rare, I know plenty of Siblings that have to actively seek contact with a Brother."
Melisa's eyes were boring into me.
"They give us everything we need. The only obligation, and even then we have a choice, is for something all of us would gladly do with them anyway. Most Siblings are happy the Brothers go through so much trouble to sort themselves out from everybody else for us."
Professor Ryan stared at Melisa. She blushed attractively, but her chin went up in an almost challenge.
"So you don't want me turned loose on eighteen thousand people who would instinctively trust me without being sure I'm worthy of that trust," I said hesitating to think about what Melisa's expectations of me might be. "What does the training concern?"
"That's between you and your trainer," he told me with a smirk.
Melisa grinned widely and a touch of smugness crept into the grin. I could not help myself; I had to give her a silly grin of my own.
I turned back to Professor Ryan.
"A Sibling?" I asked.
"Of course," he replied. "Using the vocabulary of the civilized world, would you let a submissive train another submissive."
"No," I said immediately.
"Why not?" he asked.
I had not really thought about it but worked it through in words.
"The things that felt good to Doris Alex were the things that felt good to you. She got off on doing that to and for you. So much of her pleasure is mental in those situations; she has to know being in that dominant position over her is giving you as much pleasure as being submissive gives her. There would be a mental disconnect with a sub-to-sub situation. Everything would be different the first time she was with a Brother for HER."
"So?" Dr Ryan urged.
I nodded to myself as I thought about it.
"It wouldn't make any sense to have a Brother train another. Most of the time would be spent fighting for control, if not dominance. It's also important to go through that first transfer of power when the Brother takes over the relationship if a Sibling does the training. A Brother candidate would have to learn how to read a Sibling's wants, needs, and how she wants him to take control. Again, you might as well get him started right away with a Sibling he trusts."
I turned to look at Melisa.
"So you're my trainer?" I asked her.
"We prefer First Sibling," she replied. "Formally, my title is your First."
I got up, and stared at a corner of the room.
"When are the interviews?" I asked.
"Three tomorrow, and four on Sunday," Professor Ryan said.
"Where?"
"The Ramada," he said. "Melisa will guide you through it. They start at 9 am."
I nodded, almost to myself, and walked out.
=====Chapter 4=====
I walked around campus for a long time, thinking about the fairy tale they told me. I remembered telling Melisa I would take the weekend after Dr. Lawren's final paper was due off to unwind before finals. They must have started planning then.
I went back to the dorm and changed into my gym clothes.
I spent twenty minutes on the treadmill, thinking about Melisa and Doris Alex. I finished and moved to the weight area but was intercepted by Janet.
"You're looking intense," she said in a mildly flirtatious voice.
Janet was the girl who had been slapped on the bus. She had jet-black hair, warm brown eyes and was three inches shorter than Melisa. The other major difference between them was that while Melisa's curves were symmetrical, Janet had a plump behind and breasts. She was on the dance team so the rest of her body was tight but her curves defied any attempts at flattening.
"Hey," I said to her.
"What's got you all serious?" she asked me.
I shook my head and smiled at her.
"You know David, you're going to have to open up sometime," she admonished half-jokingly. She leaned a little closer and for the first time I did not take a step back. Janet played around the edges of wanting to express more gratitude for the bus incident. The playing was so subtle I had put it off to wishful thinking on my part. She raised an eyebrow at my not moving away. For the first time, she was the one that took the step backward.
