Claire Thompson - Tracy in chains

"I'll be your Master."

The words made her gasp as she saw them scroll across the computer screen. Tracy looked around nervously to see if her husband had somehow materialized behind her, but no, he was still safely tucked away on his own chat site. Actually they were both on 'bulletin boards' – those expensive and lumbering precursors to today's chat rooms.

The year was 1995 and Tracy had just turned twenty-eight. She sat typing away on a computer, while her husband typed away on his computer in the other room.

Those words, 'whispering' to her, were the result of the profile Tracy had created for herself on the Palace bulletin board:

Nickname: Beloved

Desire: To find a 'Master' to teach me about submission and BDSM

Experience: Novice, but eager to learn

Availability: Email and online only

Stats: Female, Age 28, curvy and voluptuous

She felt silly selecting 'curvy and voluptuous' from the list of choices, which ranged from 'willowy' to 'big and beautiful'. Knowing this was anonymous made it much easier. She had already received numerous emails from eager men who wanted to do wonderful, terrible things to her. She tentatively emailed back to a few, and gotten responses that made it pretty clear they were really only interested in her typing sex scenes for them while they jerked off at their keyboards.

The little time she had spent in the 'chat room' areas, watching others type silly things to her and to each other, made her realize the average age of the participants was probably about 16, if not chronologically, at least emotionally. It was disheartening. Still, there were forums where some thoughtful people had posted questions and ideas about the whole 'scene', and lots of interesting articles and points of view.

Tracy found herself absorbed in reading about things she had only dared fantasize about all these years. Until this point she had never been able to reconcile her own submissive and masochistic urges with her heartfelt views on feminism and equality. How could she be for women's rights, yet have nasty little fantasies about being tied up and spanked? Or held down and raped by a dark mysterious stranger? What was wrong with her? Definitely something, she had been certain. At least until she had found this site, and started reading all this information from people who apparently had had the same questions and thoughts!

She might be 'sick', but she wasn't alone.

That in itself was an amazing revelation. She wasn't the only woman out there with these strange desires to be sexually dominated and controlled. There were lots of women, and indeed men, who shared her needs and dreams. Many of them, if not most, didn't seem to have the hang-ups she did – they didn't consider themselves 'sick' or perverted at all, but accepted their own sexual needs and orientations as a matter of course. She spent many hours reading and scrolling from article to letter, her eyes wide with wonder.

"Where's dinner? I'm hungry!" Kyle's smooth tenor made Tracy jump in her seat. She was startled to realize it was already dark outside.

"Hey, you're getting just as bad as me, huh?" Kyle grinned at her and leaned down to try and see what she was doing. Tracy quickly minimized her screen and jumped up, her face flushed. In the several weeks she had been going online, she had begun spending more and more time on the computer. Instead of reprimanding her, Kyle seemed pleased; it left him free to stay on too, and she couldn't very well complain about him, when she was just as culpable!

"Wow, I had no idea it was so late! I forgot to get anything out for dinner."

"That's ok, let's go out to eat. I'm in the mood for Greek food anyway," Kyle said. Casually he added, "So what were you doing, anyway? What sites did you check out?"

"Oh… um… a couple of cooking sites, and a site for new mothers." Shit. Why did she say that? She couldn't even lie properly! Kyle's features darkened slightly and he turned away. He hated when she harped, as he called it, about children. Still, it had the desired effect of making him drop the subject.

Earlier in the month, when Tracy had protested to Kyle that he was on the computer entirely too much, he had suggested she give it a try. Tossing her the bulletin boards magazine, a listing of all the most current sites on the fledgling Internet, he went back to his constant typing, barely glancing at his wife. She took the magazine, annoyed, but not quite brave enough to protest further.

Kyle didn't like it when Tracy 'got in his face' as he called it. He needed his space, he told her, and if she wasn't careful, the veiled threat behind his argument was he would get it by leaving her. Tracy was sure that would destroy her. She adored Kyle. She needed Kyle. She lived for Kyle.

Taking the magazine, she went into the living room and sat down. Holding it unopened in her lap, she stared out vacantly at the redwood deck they had built in the back. This was the most recent addition to the house, and the most recent reason Kyle had patiently explained why they shouldn't have a child just yet. They had to finish paying for the deck. It wouldn't be wise to enter parenthood even more in debt than they already were, would it? With the medical school loans still looming over them, it would be a while before they were debt free.

Reluctantly Tracy had agreed, though she yearned for a baby with almost physical pain. Sometimes her longing was so acute she had even considered tricking Kyle and stopping her birth control pills. She knew she would never do that; he would never forgive her.

So she waited. She had waited this long, dutifully working at the bank, putting Kyle through medical school, leaving her own college studies so they could devote themselves to his career as a doctor.

When he was done with medical school, and in residency, making a living wage, she could go back to college, or have children, he had promised. When the actual time came, the first year of residency was much more daunting than either of them had anticipated. Kyle was gone sixteen to twenty hours out of every twenty-four, and when he was home, it was only to eat something he barely tasted, then fall like a rock into their bed.

The next three years were better, but Kyle was ambitious, and put in the extra time it took to become chief resident. He would always explain, a veneer of patience over exasperation, that what he was doing was for them both. This was an investment in their future, one he was willing to make. The fact that it left thepresent a sometimes lonely place for Tracy, was just a fact of life.

Tracy tried to be understanding, and didn't press him. He was a doctor. She was so proud she could have burst. She had risen from teller to head teller at the bank, and had quite a bit of responsibility, but it was nothing compared to her husband, the doctor. How she had bridled when she had told Mr. Simmons, the senior loan officer, that her husband was doing his residency in psychiatry.

"I thought he was a medical doctor," he had blandly replied.

"Thatis a medical doctor!" she retorted, annoyed that he, and many others, confused psychology and psychiatry. Her husband was an M.D. – Dr. Kyle Becker, M.D. – and he wouldn't have made it without her, as he had told her time and again.

How she wanted to quit that job at the bank. The work was tedious and repetitive, and she really wasn't a 'people person.' She hated having to smile and smooth things over when a customer became irate over some perceived slight. Confrontation frightened her, and being forced to deal with it professionally took a lot out of her, though on the surface she appeared calm and controlled.