Sydny’s voice was abruptly closer, almost beside her right ear. “Kitten, there is a time, a place—with a someone—to let go, to submit, to give yourself wholly to that other person—to do what they say, to respond when they command you, and then to feel. Once you do that, once you fight through your fear, what you gain is incalculable.”

“What?” Julie’s voice could not have been smaller if she were a mouse. “What do I gain?”

“A strength you never knew you had. A power no one can ever take away from you.” Sydny ran her fingers through Julie’s hair. “A new life is waiting for you, kitten.” She took her hand away, leaving Julie alone. “You have only to reach out and take it.”

And yet not alone. Julie submitted, slipping off the chair to kneel with her legs spread as Sydny had commanded.

“Bend over until your forehead touches the floor.”

She bent over until her forehead touched the floor. Fear grabbed her; she had never felt so vulnerable.

For some moments thereafter nothing happened. Then Julie felt something slick and smooth penetrate her from behind. “What is that?”

“No questions. Just feel. Feel.”

The thing—possibly a dildo—moved in and out of Julie. At first she resisted. She wondered whether this was what it felt like to be raped. Then she realized that she was holding on to fears engendered by notions, misconceptions, outright lies that were part of her past. She trusted Sydny, though she could not say why. Maybe it was because Gregory Whitman trusted her, but she suspected that, even more, it was because she was sick until death of her gray past. She wanted to be rid of it, burn it on the pyre of the unknown future.

“You can free yourself,” Sydny had said, “shed your past like a snake sheds its old skin.”

She wanted that, oh, yes, she did, she discovered, with every fiber of her being.

She began to relax, to, as Sydny kept reminding her, feel. But a new fear began to creep in to replace the old, engendered not by the penetration but by the realization of having no control. To cede control as an adult in the modern world was a terrifying experience.

As if she were reading Julie’s mind, Sydny said, “But you see, we have no control over what happens to us. We may think we do, but we’re just fooling ourselves. Life is random. Life is chaos. The pretense of control is what keeps most people sane. But here, with me, you don’t have to keep up the pretense. Here you confront life as it really is—raw, primitive, unfamiliar. Here you will find out the truth about yourself.”