Bekah sat in class and wished that the floor would open into a bottomless pit and swallow her up. After the previous night’s catastrophe, she and Melody had gone back and forth with her apologizing profusely and Mel telling her that it was all okay. It clearly wasn’t okay. She’d done exactly what she’d sworn she’d never do, and taken away someone else’s freedom to choose for themself. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t meant to, or that Melody had claimed to enjoy it. It quickly became clear that they weren’t getting anywhere, and it had been an extremely long and emotionally exhausting day, so the two of them ended up crashing before anything got actually resolved. Mel slept in the guest room, and Bekah lay sleepless in her own bed, staring at the ceiling unable to stop thinking about what she’d done. The moment of realization that she’d accidentally brought the other woman under her power, that she was defenceless and vulnerable to anything that Bekah wanted to do to her… it made her want to throw up, her chest tight with disgust. She’d ended up tossing and turning the whole night and left as soon as it became light enough for her to justify. Melody was still asleep when she’d gone, but she’d left a pot of coffee on and a note saying she should help herself to anything in the fridge, so that was alright. If she kept telling herself that, maybe she’d stop feeling so damn guilty about everything.
    “Bekah?”
    She startled, looking up to meet the inquiring gaze of Professor Metan, or as she insisted her students call her, Tiffany.
    “Sorry?”
    “Do you have any thoughts to share?”
    Bekah could feel her face begin to heat. “I’m uh, afraid I didn’t catch the question. I was thinking about other things.”
    A light giggle flowed throughout the lecture hall. Bekah caught a muttered “already calling her new soulmate a thing, oh how the self-righteous fall” from somewhere to her left, but when she whirled her head, no one met her gaze.
    News of her new definitively ownership mark had spread throughout Bekah’s cohort like wildfire. A few people had taken it as an excuse to snipe at her supposed hypocrisy given her outspoken hatred for societal ownership, an opinion that had gotten her into more than a few arguments in class. Most of her fellow students were happy for her, with a few of her acquaintances even coming together to make her a congratulatory card. Bekah wasn’t sure which group was worse.
    Tiffany sighed. “I understand that you’re going through a lot right now Bekah, but please try to be here with us during class.”
    “I–I will. I’m so sorry. Can you please repeat the question?”
    “We were discussing the penal system as it stands today, and the twenty seventh amendment came up. I know you’ve made quite the study of twenty seven, albeit from a different angle. I was curious what you had to say about how it impacted the carceral state.”
    Bekah straightened up in her seat, taking a moment to breathe and center herself. This was familiar territory. She could do this.
    “Well, aside from the twenty seventh being an absolute travesty of justice–” Groans echoed through the room, but she pushed forward. “Despite that disaster, which I do not feel the need to go into in entirety at this time,” A muttered thank god came from the same direction as the prior comment, but Bekah studiously ignored it.  “It is also a fascinating legal example of the ways that so-called big tent strategies for advocacy can be a mixed blessing. Beginning with the obvious, prison reform was going nowhere before the advent of soulmarks. We’d been stuck with the thirteenth’s exemption on slavery for those who have committed a crime for over a century, and despite the hard work of abolitionist advocates and the renewed focus on civil rights at the time, no serious efforts were being made to rework the system.” Bekah paused, took another breath, and continued. “Prior to the advent of soulmarks, prisoners were forced into labor regularly. This was not the historical tradition of ‘sentencing someone to labor’, but a side effect of being incarcerated. You were not only imprisoned but also forced to work. We’ve all seen the old photos of prisoners picking up trash by the highways.”
    “But it wasn’t just community service. Many of these prisoners were also being used as cheap domestic labor for private companies, ‘earning’ pennies every hour for their work. And then suddenly–” Bekah snapped her fingers, “We have Soulmarks. We have the absolute political turmoil that followed in their wake, and we of course have the advent of modern ‘consensual’ slavery.” She didn’t bother to hide the disgust in her voice, but moved on quickly before she could be cut off again. “Which I will not be discussing! Except to say that there was a burgeoning movement to revise the thirteenth amendment, with a growing political and grassroots backing unlike anything the country had seen before. The existing prison reform advocacy groups simply hitched their wagon to the rising tide, if you’ll excuse a mixed metaphor. They offered their existing lobbying structure to the swell of funding and support that suddenly existed, in exchange for a minor addition to the goal of legalizing consensual slavery in this country. ‘Chosen not Condemned’ became the slogan of the era for a reason. And so the cause of ending involuntary servitude became inextricably linked to the cause of creating voluntary servitude.” Another deep breath. She’d been talking faster and faster as she went, she needed to slow down. Another breath. Another. “Which has its pros and cons. Although we’ll never know, there’s reason to believe no amendment simply ending incarcerated slavery would have been passed without the force behind the Soulmark movement. This also means, of course, that any efforts to reform our current system must be more complex than a simple repeal of the twenty seventh. It would be unconscionable for our country to resurrect one sin while redeeming for another.” She sat back down in her chair. She hadn’t realized she’d stood.
    Tiffany clapped once. “I knew you’d have some lovely ideas for us to chew on Bekah, thank you. And I appreciate your restraint in discussing what I know you find to be a distasteful topic. Now,” she said, turning away to face another student across the room “Medi, what can you tell me about current efforts on prison reform? We all know removing the slavery clause from the 13th didn’t fix everything.”
    Relieved, Bekah slumped back. While normally she loved Tiffany’s classes, she was relieved to be able to relax, her contribution enough to ensure a solid fifteen minutes of peace before she was called on again. And it was a relief to talk about something she understood. It felt like a remnant of her old life, her life from just a week prior. When things had made any amount of sense.
    All too quickly, the events of the night before came rushing back, filling every corner of her mind like the tide coming in. How had things gone so poorly? Everything had been going really well, and then Mel had started to massage her feet and then she was crying and then… Was that it? Was the massage too close to the service the girl thought she wanted? But then how had she hypnotized her by accident after? There was no denying that was what she’d done, as much as she would have liked to. 
    I can never do this again, Bekah thought to herself. She had always thought the way to safety was through knowledge, and she didn’t see why this should be any different. And so Bekah, while pretending to take notes in what was normally one of her favorite classes, found herself researching hypnosis techniques. By the end of the day, she was sure, she’d know everything there was about how to hypnotize someone. And therefore, she’d be absolutely certain not to.

***

Mel rose that morning full of strength and the warm belief that her Creator had placed her where she was meant to be. Some of that warmth had fled by the time she poked her head around the sumptuously decorated house long enough to confirm that, yes, Bekah had left her alone in her house, but not all. Her experience the night before had been enough to assuage her fears. Whether Bekah knew it or not, this was what was right for both of them. This was what God wanted for her, and by God she wanted it too. She only had to convince her owner that she wasn’t a terrible person, and that really Mel would quite like to be her brainwashed slave. How hard could it possibly be?
    After the initial moment of terror that she had been abandoned and the surge of relief when she saw Bekah’s note hanging, it took a few moments for her to gather herself back together. She poured a cup of coffee out of the stainless steel pot and into what had to be a handmade ceramic mug, and inhaled gratefully. The sharp and bitter smell wove its way into her lungs and warmed her up from the inside. She took a sip. It was good coffee.
    She really is rich, huh, Mel thought to herself. She looked around the kitchen, gaze flicking from coffee machine to stand mixer to toaster oven, all a perfect shiny steel and all matching the black granite countertops. Mel’s own kitchen could be charitably described as a mess. She’d scrimped and saved for almost a year to buy her own stand mixer. She might be secondhand and shabby, but Amelia was a workhorse and Mel would keep fixing her till she gave up the ghost. She took a moment to stroke the smooth arm of Bekah’s mixer, so clean and perfect it might never have been used. I want to cook here. This place is gorgeous. 
    Mel wandered out of the kitchen, coffee cup in hand. She liked to think she was floating ephemerally like a Victorian ghost in an abandoned mansion, but a casual observer would probably go more to “kid home sick from school” given her dog patterned pjs and the way she was sliding her feet across the floor, enjoying the smooth wood against her soles. Still, a girl could dream about grace, even if she couldn’t achieve it.
    Her reaction to Bekah’s house the prior night had been if anything understated. The place was gorgeous, clearly designed with an eye for color and scale, the lines of the furniture and walls drew the eye smoothly across the space, letting it rest occasionally on some artwork or another. Nothing too bold, too gauche, just enough to remind you that this was a home that was lived in.
    Speaking of lived in, Mel opened yet another door on her aimless ramble and stopped dead. It was clearly Bekah’s bedroom, judging by the clothes strewn about the floor and the unmade bed. On reflex, Mel made to close the door, but she paused before she could complete the motion. She didn’t want to invade the other woman’s privacy, but it was messy in there. She could clean it. She could show Bekah how useful and nice it would be to have her around. 
    Before she could talk herself out of it, Melody shoved the door back open and hurried into the room. 
    In and out, she thought. I’ll just be in and out, and I won’t even see anything. 
    Peering around just long enough to locate the laundry hamper, she lowered her gaze to the floor beneath her and began to gather. This at least was a familiar action, even if she was somewhere new, even if these weren’t her clothes she was piling in her arms, even if that wasn’t her smell infused in every article. Bekah smelled… good. Mel had never been good with smells, and she couldn’t pin exactly what it reminded her of, but it made her feel safe and comfortable and more than a little turned on. 
That last sensation was enough to snap her out of her reverie and realize that she’d been sniffing at the armpits of a dark blue blouse without even realizing. Blushing fiercely, she hurried through the rest of the task, and retreated to the kitchen leaving a tidied bedroom behind her.
Returning to that immaculate space did remind her that she hadn’t actually had anything to eat yet. She didn’t feel the most comfortable about rummaging around someone else’s cupboards, but Bekah had said it was okay. Or her note had, at least.
Steeling her resolve, she opened the cupboards to find… nothing. Well, not precisely nothing, but certainly nothing that could be considered breakfast food. A couple pounds of pasta, some tinned fish, some canned beans and tomatoes. Other than that, the shelves were bare.
Okay, she thought. Let’s try the fridge.
    She pulled open first one side, then the other. There was a couple vegetables tucked away in the crisper and looking past their prime, some milk, and a long row of single serving yogurts taking up prime position in the center. 
    Mel was absolutely stunned. She kept peeking in, hoping that some other food would materialize behind closed doors.
    I can handle this. It’s fine. My owner hates food. She starves to death and eats yogurt every single day for breakfast. That’s normal, right? It’s fine. I can help introduce her to new things. I can cook for her. It’ll be great.
    There was still the immediate issue of feeding herself. The grumbling in her stomach had grown more insistent. She didn’t mind yogurt or anything, but she hadn’t remembered to pack her Lactaid in the frenzy of selling off her life and preparing for a new one. Somehow in planning for the beginning of a new life as a slave, acid reflux doesn’t really play into the fantasy.
    This is fine. It's fine. I can run out, grab some Lactaid. No, wait, I can run out and get breakfast. Wait, no better idea. I can go out and buy some ingredients and bake something to share with Bekah! Perfect. No flaws. I got this. It’s fine.
    Her little pep talk, Mel grabbed her purse from the guest room where she’d spent the night and made her way to the front door. 
Where a conundrum presented itself. In her usual pat down check of wallet, phone, keys, she’d run into a small issue. She still had her old keys, a memento of her apartment, her job, and her car. What she didn’t have was a key to Bekah’s house. And if she didn’t have a key, she couldn’t lock the door behind her. Mel couldn’t just leave the place unlocked, either. It might be a nicer neighborhood than she was used to, but that didn’t mean it was immune to petty thievery. It certainly looked appealing enough for her to have idly tried the doorknob in her younger, delinquent years. Which meant… she couldn’t go out. She was stuck there. 

***

Hi Bekah its Mel. I realized I can’t leave your place since I don’t have a key and I don’t want to leave it unlocked haha

Do you have like a spare or something? Under a rock or the mat or somewhere like that

Hey Bekah

I don’t mean to be a bother and text you when you’re busy but uhh

I just wanted to know when you’ll be home

Cause I’m kinda stuck here till then!

No pressure though haha

    Hiiiiiii I’m kinda freaking out

Like I know you’re not ignoring me but im going through a lot and I can’t eat anything in here and I wanna go out and get food but I cant and I was gonna bake something for you but i cant do that either and like

Im just having a hard time

Can you give me a call when your free

I’m sorry to be so needy i know this isn’t what you want
    
    Im just kinda freaking out

    Oops said that already lol
    
    Silly Mel

    Bekah?

Please call me Bekah
    
    i think im having a panic attack
    
i need you