Who Can It Be Now?

She tried to keep from scratching at the tattoo. It didn't always work.

*****

It is Danielle's first trip to LA since she left, five years ago, and it feels like she's trying on the dress she wore to the prom. It doesn't quite fit, it seems different...but the changes are more to her than to the city. She is not the person she was.

She passes the spot where her old apartment building was; it is now the home of a Starbucks, and she revises her analogy. The world changes as much as the people that live in it. We all move on. We all let go of old memories.

She walks into the steel-and-glass tower where Clara Stewart runs her empire from, and is mildly surprised when the security guards do not stop her. She is allowed to take the elevator all the way to the penthouse floor, and when she steps out, there is nobody at the receptionist's desk. She walks through into the office, and opens the hidden door in the bookshelf as though she had just been there the previous morning. She walks down the hallway, and finally comes to Clara's private rooms. Clara is sitting in her 'throne', with a slavegirl nuzzling her crotch, and a half-smile quirks her lips as she sees Danielle.

She looks so...old, Danielle thinks. She was forty when I met her...she's only fifty now. But she looks...old... Aloud, she says, "I didn't think I'd be allowed to get this far."

Clara's smile broadens. "The doors are always open here for you, danielle." She speaks with the same authority, as though she simply expects to see Danielle drop to her knees on the spot.

She doesn't. "I came here because someone gave me a letter. I thought it might be from you."

Clara nods. "It took me some time to find you, danielle, but I never gave up hope. you were my finest creation; you were utterly subservient, totally obedient, and your tongue was magnificent. I thought you might have died, but instead I found you hidden away in a prison made of fear, still thinking you were free. you had exchanged my gift of servitude for slavery to fear. I couldn't let you keep on that way. I knew you'd come back."

Danielle nods. "I had to come back. You were right. I was still a slave. I'd gotten rid of one mistress, but I had picked up another. I wasn't free. I wasn't even alive. I was buried in that house, and until I stopped running, I could never be free." She stares Clara in the eye. "I'm not running now."

Clara laughs. "you think you learned something in that little hut, danielle? you think that now you're a stronger person?" She shakes her head, but her eyes remain locked with Danielle's. "you will never be a strong person. you never were a strong person. I broke your will over, and over, and over, and over, and I can do it any time I wish. your mind knows this. It remembers the years of obedience, the ingrained habit of total submission to your Mistress. Like a path beaten into the ground, the tracks of obedience are worn into your mind, and you know that deep down, you want to walk them again...don't you?"

Danielle walks closer. "I remember the years of obedience. And I remember that I'd gotten an apartment two weeks before I met you. I remember buying a coffee mug that morning, because there was a coffee shop on my way here that offered free refills, and I thought it was a good-luck charm. I remember spotting a guy in the lobby and trying to spot which box he grabbed his mail from so I could see which apartment he lived in. I remember seeing a little kid skateboarding and thinking that my child would never be allowed to do that without proper padding. I remember buying groceries, I remember feeding a squirrel in the woods and feeling strong and pure like an angel.

"I remember that you took ten years of my life away from me." She is inches away now, and tears are streaming down her face. "And you gave back nothing but dust and ashes."

Clara's eyes are narrowed now. She looks hurt, in an indefinable way. "I gave you pleasure; total joy, the feel of being complete in a way nobody would never understand save you...that meant nothing to you?"

"Nothing at all. It wasn't a life. It wasn't a hope. It wasn't a future. It was just a fake. Just a lie. And that's the worst part, seeing it all now. That you actually thought it meant something. That you actually think that any of this--" she made a sweeping gesture to the rest of the harem-- "means anything to anyone. These people don't love you. They don't choose to be like this. You're keeping them here against their will, and making them mouth pretty noises so that it doesn't bother your conscience." She shakes her head. "You're a slave too, Clara. A slave to power. And I don't think you'll ever be able to break free." She turns to leave.

Clara grabs her wrist, angry now. "It's not over, danielle. I can keep you here, I can break you again. As many times as it takes."

"And I can break free again. As many times as it takes. You can knock me down, but I can get back up. That's life, Clara." She pulls her wrist free. There is no tattoo there. There never was. "You should try it some time." She turns and walks away. Clara sits in her room with her Barbie dolls, silent.

*****

The squirrel is satiated. It runs away, and Danielle smiles. In an hour, she will return to her parents, but for now...there is nobody in the world but her.

THE END