Amy knelt beside the coffee table.

It was a natural reaction at this point, she supposed. Even if her dynamics with her channelers had been fundamentally broken—even if she was fundamentally broken—years of devotion brought at least some measure of experience.

She just wanted to give, so so badly. One in prison, one who couldn’t handle her needs, and one who had described himself as a “foster” after the first one went to prison.

That was already two more channelers than most sources had in a lifetime. And yet she was here.

She lifted her eyes slightly to watch the entrance in her peripheral vision.

Her coffee sat in front of her, untouched, the white fern at the top of her latte deflating slowly without her attention. She wanted to drink, but she wanted to make a strong first impression even more. Maybe Petra wasn’t the sort of channeler who cared about this sort of devotion. Maybe her and Petra wouldn’t get along at all. Maybe they would and they would learn they weren’t compatible for other reasons. But this desire to please, to demonstrate her devotion, it was part of her, and so she wanted to show it.

Luckily the door opened before the latte had cooled, and in walked a tall woman in a pantsuit and blazer. The badge on her jacket marked her as a channeler, the digits at the bottom her registration number. Amy took it in on instinct, years of training guiding her. 

Petra Krim. “CX2013F8D”. A graduation a few years before hers. A decade of experience. From the Bureau profile, a single source. She felt a pang of shame at that—she had three years of experience less and had gone through three channelers.

The anxiety disappeared when Petra made eye contact. 

The connection was instant, and Amy felt like the entire room must have seen it. Blue eyes. So very cold. A delightful shiver ran through her. She felt frozen, and yet exactly where she belonged.

Petra didn’t hurry. She took her time, even. It seemed like she was gliding across the room, an experienced predator approaching her prey.

Amy knew she was supposed to look down. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything. 

Petra stood by the table. Its surface was at knee height, with a wall bench on one side and pillows on the other. Amy had chosen the cafe carefully, to allow Petra to sit and her to kneel. She hoped Petra liked it.

Petra’s left hand moved an inch away from her side, and she made a single twirling motion with her finger. The command for presenting—used at the academies as a teaching tool, as a way of learning submission.

Amy hadn’t done it in years, but it came back to her now, as easy as breathing. Petra wanted her to move. She could move.

She rose smoothly from her kneel, spread her legs shoulder width apart, and placed her arms precisely eight inches away from her hips. She waited a moment, looking at Petra’s feet, then swapped her feet and turned 180 degrees. Her clothing suddenly felt heavy on her. She’d always done this nude.

Another 180-degree turn and she was looking at Petra’s feet again. The command was complete. She stood still, awaiting Petra’s next order.

Something relaxed in the channeler’s posture. “You may sit.” Her voice was low and rich, like half-dried blood. Amy suddenly felt the urge to see her own, running down Petra’s perfectly manicured hands.

She suppressed a shudder and knelt back on the pillow.

She’d made too much eye contact already. She waited for Petra to sit down, then stared at the channeler’s hands.

“Look at me.” There was no rush in the command, no force. Just expectation.

Amy looked up.

Petra’s face hadn’t gotten any less pretty, or any less intimidating.

The woman smiled. “I’m throwing you for a loop, aren’t I? Words please.”

“Yes….” She let the question show on her face.

Another smirk. “Miss is fine, for now.”

“Yes, miss,” Amy breathed.

Petra tapped a finger on the table and glanced at Amy’s untouched latte. “Is it something about me, or are you always this flustered?”

The unspoken request was clear: they needed to be able to have an actual conversation. Amy blinked twice and pulled her soul back into her body. She wasn’t fresh out of the academy, she knew how to reign in her submission. She blushed, self-aware again, but took a deep breath to center herself. Then she looked Petra in the eyes. “Mostly you, but also—I wanted to feel first. If one of us can’t feel it—it makes the negotiation a lot shorter. Less time wasted for either of us.”

There was a look of sympathy from Petra. “You’ve become that experienced with this?”

Amy smiled, but the pain inside leaked out a little. “I’m looking for some specific things. And there’s not many people our age looking.” The adjective before people—worthy people—she left unspoken.

Petra nodded. “I understand,” she whispered. She straightened. “Get me a coffee, please. An americano is great. No sugar. Oat milk.” She dropped a bill on the table.

Amy nodded, took the bill with two hands, and rose to her feet once again.

She spent a moment in the coffee line just breathing, reflecting, recentering herself. The chemistry had definitely been there. She’d shown vulnerability, too, in admitting that the search was troubling her, and Petra had accepted it without judgment. She still needed to ask the standard question. But this felt better than almost any date so far. Plus the way Petra had responded to her unprompted devotion—just accepted it, without being overwhelmed or grateful—touched something deep inside of her.

Could it be? She didn’t want to hope.

The coffee line wasn’t too long. She used Petra’s money and left what she hoped was an appropriately generous tip. It wasn’t her money, but Petra seemed like someone who would tip well. She checked herself—did she just want to believe that? No. The blazer. The way she moved. Thoughtful.

Yes, she’d left the right tip.

The reflection carried her through picking up the coffee and back to their table. For a moment she was glad that she’d kept practicing her positions at home, even though her last two channelers both hadn’t cared for them. It let her smoothly flow down to her knees even as she held the coffee level. She placed it in front of her prospective channeler with both hands.

“Very good, thank you,” Petra said. There was that subtle smirk in her tone again, that voice that said ’I expect this of you, but I’m feeling generous with my praise.’

Amy kept her eyes on the table as Petra took a sip of her americano.

The silence between them was tense but comfortable. Amy’s entire attention was focused on Petra, trying to anticipate what might happen next, what the channeler might want from her, and where the conversation might go. But she trusted Petra to take the lead.

Petra set down her coffee. “Ready?”

Amy looked up. Time to think for herself again. “Yes miss.”

“So…” Her perfectly manicured hands tapped the table again. “What are you looking for in a channeler, and why has it been hard to find?”

Amy felt her shoulders pull in a little. She looked down. “It’s… I… I don’t think I’m a perfect source. But I want to be. Very badly. Maybe… Maybe there’s a depth of surrender where I can’t go any farther. But if there is I haven’t seen it.” She looked up, trying to show the longing in her eyes. “I want to help my channeler do great things. I know—I know being a good source means letting go of my own desire. But as long as I can still have them: I want to assist someone in becoming great.”

Petra smiled. “Tricky is it? I imagine if they don’t take you all the way down, the desire remains, anyway.”

Amy felt a rush of warmth. “Yes. When— my last channeler wanted to run a small, independent agency, doing small-scale events. I guess if he had taken me deep enough to take the desire from me I wouldn’t be here.” She smiled, though it was pained. “But it would have been too much effort for him. He wanted an assistant who desired his lifestyle. As long as he let me think that independently… The desire sits deep.”

“So now you’re being careful?” Petra asked. She picked up the americano again. Amy didn’t answer for a moment, lost in the grace and control with which her channeler picked up her coffee. She wanted those hands on—

She blinked. “Yes. I—How deep do you want me to confess?”

“Good girl.” Petra didn’t miss a beat. “If it helps this conversation, I promise not to judge.” She stretched a hand across the table.

Amy took it gratefully. 

She took a deep breath. “My first—channeler. I went all the way with her. There wasn’t much of me left. But she was—she was slowly destroying me. I’m sure you’ve seen the records.” She watched as Petra nodded. “Yeah, the Bureau takes long-term source wellbeing pretty seriously. The thing the records don’t talk about so much: I liked it. I needed it. I wanted to be that small, to be that ensconced in her power. I just wish she’d cared about me enough to nurture what remained.”

Petra’s eyes closed for a second, reflecting. She spoke slowly, obviously choosing her words carefully. “There were records of excessive cruelty. Scarification. A hot iron.”

Amy made a snap decision and sank a little more into her submission. She raised the hand that wasn’t holding Petra’s from the table and tilted to her right. Then she lifted her shirt on her left side. She heard Petra’s sharp inhale. But she wasn’t looking.

She stared at the table as the mark of what she was became visible to the world. A three-inch burn scar. A raised welt half an inch across at its widest—light pink, but clearly visible above the rest of her skin.

If she were a different person it might have been a token of her survival. A reminder of what she’d overcome. Something to be proud of. And then maybe she wouldn’t be staring down at the table.

“It was one of my favorite moments,” Amy whispered. “The partnership turned bad eventually… But the burn? She’d told me she was going to do it weeks before. She made me beg for it. We were in the study on a cold winter night, sitting in front of the fireplace. She made me kneel in front of the fire and beg one more time. And then she stood over me with the iron. I watched. She was slow. She stared into my eyes as she did it.” Amy shuddered.

She looked up and saw Petra biting her lip, less composed and more aroused than Amy had seen. It gave her the strength to continue. “She held me after. Cooing over the burn. She used the magical energy from that evening to manifest an iridium rose that she gifted me. She called it a ‘reminder of what I was.’”

Amy felt Petra’s thumb begin stroking her hand, supporting her. “I love the rose but I don’t need it.” She let her t-shirt fall, finally looking back up at Petra. She smiled at the channeler. “I have the reminder marked forever on my skin.”

There was that silence again, as Petra considered her words.

“And what you want…” Her voice was husky. “Is to reach that again?”

Amy tilted her head, still warm from the way Petra had received the words. “Well I would prefer you didn’t land in prison after getting bored and destroying my mental health, but yes.”

Petra leaned back and breathed deeply. She looked at the ceiling for a moment. 

“I have a compulsion,” she began. “I like to change things. I enjoy power over the body. I enjoy power over the mind more. I like large-scale workings. Artifact creation, usually. The perpetual motion turbine running the East City Power Station is my work. The invocation—when I imprinted the enchantment on the turbine—I timed with the moment my submissive—my source—realized I had taken something very precious away from her. It broke her.”

Amy shivered. “And… What—what was it?” She heard her voice fill with an uncomfortable want.

Petra tilted her head to the side and smiled a predator’s grin. “She had a labrador, back when she was a child. They were inseparable. Her face lit up every time she told me about the memories. I took its name. Its face. And every moment they had ever touched. I left the rest so that she would know.”

Amy noticed her own breathing, coming in slow, forceful pants. Horror flowed through her limbs, filling her with the desire to both runaway and to prostrate herself and beg. She pleaded with her eyes, for something she could not name.

Petra’s canines seemed momentarily too long for a human. “Oooo I like that facial expression on you. A bit of want, a bit of fear, a bit of hurt—sympathy? or empathy?”

“Em—Empathy. I got tested, I’m bordering on the designation.”

Petra raised an eyebrow. “A psychometric empath? That wasn’t in the record.”

Amy shook her head, still weighed down by Petra’s story. “It wasn’t across the line.”

Petra smiled again. “I bet we could fix that.” The canines flashed again. If Amy hadn’t been kneeling she would have collapsed.

She tried to shake it off. She’d accepted she’d do this conversation from a submissive position, but she—she still needed some wits. “What—what did you do after?”

“I held her. For days, every time she remembered she’d be a little bit sad. She’d come into my room, and I’d hold her, and we’d charge one of the mana batteries together.” For just a moment there was something wistful in Petra’s eyes. “It became a precious ritual for both of us.”

Amy nodded, and took another deep breath. The thoughtfulness. The desire to hurt and to take and to control. It all resonated with her. But there was one more question she needed to ask, one more question that could ruin everything.

“If—if those things all went so well… why did it end? Why are you here?”

“It was her.” Petra smiled fondly. “She was lovely. We’re still friends. But she wanted to go to graduate school and become a philosophy professor. The savings from her time as my source let her do it.”

Amy pulled back a little. “Wouldn’t having other desires have kept her from being a source—at least to the degree you wanted it?”

“When we met during academy matching she offered it to me. She explained it was one of her deepest desires, but that she understood it wasn’t something that was up to her anymore.” 

Amy’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “And you didn’t take it away from her?”

“Of course I took it from her. It was one of the first things I did.” She tilted her head. “But I held on to it for her.”

Amy shivered. At this point it wasn’t even a vetting question, she just needed to know. “How?”

Petra gave Amy a warm smile and stroked Amy’s hand—she was still holding it—more firmly. Amy understood: this was helping Petra too. “I made her take regular lessons. I made her read the important texts. She didn’t understand why, except that it was something she had lost. The confusion, the suffering, the acceptance—they were all delightful. But they weren’t why I did it. Ten years in, when the savings were large enough and when I deemed her ready for the next step in her journey, I gave her the desire back and I released her.”

“Did that hurt?” Amy could feel how wide her eyes were. “I can’t imagine… I can’t imagine wanting to leave. I didn’t, and my dynamic was a legal case.”

“Yes.” Petra continued, her voice soft. “The transition was hard for both of us… But we’re close now, and she’s grateful.”

There was something about the… care of that. The merciless, loving, almost cruel love. Amy noticed she was unconsciously tipping forward, her body instinctively seeking contact, opening up. Her subconscious had already made her decision.

Petra watched without expression. “To explain the rest of the details: No, she’s not the same as she was before. Not all changes are so easily undone, and that wasn’t our agreement. She remembers the dog again. But she still has compulsions about completing her todo lists. She keeps her space tidy. She has a trance-like focus when reading. We check in once in a while, in case I need to make adjustments.”

That brought Amy back to logistics. She sat up again and released the hand. “And this time…”

“This time I’d like something for life,” Petra finished.

Amy nodded. “Good… Good.” She thought for a moment, suddenly paralyzed. Fear bubbled up, bone deep. A precipice, rushing closer. “I think… I think I need to think about this, and— well— I—“

Petra snapped a finger in front of Amy’s face and Amy froze. 

She tapped the low bench next to her. “Crawl up here please.” 

Amy moved before she could think.

“You’re feeling it already, aren’t you?” Petra asked. “Some part of you already knows. And after our conversation you know how much you’ll lose for it, don’t you? And the loss is already hitting you?”

Amy nodded, still on hands and knees, still halfway up the bench.

Petra grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in. She did something Amy didn’t understand to adjust their bodies. She found herself curled into the channeler’s side, and for a moment she marveled at how perfectly her body molded into her channeler’s.

“I—“ she tilted her head into Petra’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

Petra’s left hand came up and began stroking her head.

“It must be hard, to want so deeply. To need so much and to be so vulnerable.”

It wasn’t something that required a response, but she nodded into Petra’s chest anyway.

“It’s okay,” Petra whispered. “I’ve got you. And I’ll show you. In the way you need.”

Her words were honey-sweet and razor-sharp. 

“Little source, scared of what she needs.” Petra continued stroking Amy’s hair. “What do you think I’ll take first, hmmmm? Is there a quirk? A habit? A preference?”

Amy shivered. “I really hate blueberries.”

Petra raised an eyebrow. “And that’s what scares you most about me changing? Something you don’t like? A berry?”

“No, I— I thought you said you’d— They have blueberries here…” She looked up at Petra, uncertain.

Petra looked down at her and ran a hand down to Amy’s neck. She only squeezed lightly, but Amy settled.

“Ohhh, so much, already?” Petra asked. “I’d intended more talk, but I suppose this will serve better. Are you sure you don’t need to think more?”

Amy shook her head, still pushed into Petra’s chest. The motion was small, weak. “I— even if we don’t— no matter what we decide, I want to give you this, to feel this with you. Please let me.”

Petra stroked Amy’s head, thinking. “You’re not quite in your right mind, but… fine. I trust the amount of years you’ve done this and the amount of time you’ve spent looking.”

Suddenly Amy felt the back of her neck pinched and Petra’s voice dropped an octave. “But this also isn’t much to give, is it? You’d eat dog food for me if I gave you a glance, no? If I offered you skin contact?”

Amy shivered and clawed herself deeper into her channeler’s embrace. She whimpered in answer.

She felt a tingling as Petra pulled energy from her. She glanced over and saw a bill floating towards the counter and a pen floating over a notepad. She could guess what was written on it.

She turned and pushed her head deeper into Petra’s chest, even as the channeler continued stroking her head.

There was a moment of silence—until Amy couldn’t help herself.

“I would, miss,” she whispered.

“Mmmmm?” Petra asked. “Do what?”

She was making her say it. “The dog food. I think I would eat dog food for you.”

“Good girl,” Petra said. “What’s scaring you right now?”

Amy shivered. She wasn’t sure if this was part of getting to know her—part of their negotiation—or part of the game they were playing out right now.

“It’s both,” Petra said. 

She must have hesitated. And Petra—fuck—Petra was already reading her like a book. There— she was overthinking. She surrendered and started talking.

“That I’ll give you everything. That you’ll give me everything. That you’ll take everything away. That I’m wrong for opening up this quickly. That you could destroy me, and the Bureau wouldn’t notice this time. That you could perfect me, and the Bureau could take you away from me. That I’ll lose my friends to you. That you’ll hold off because of my friends. That I won’t be enough for you. That you’re all talk and less action. That I become too much for you. That you like things I don’t, and that I can’t change fast enough for you. That this is all a dream and I’ll wake up and you aren’t real. Please be real. Please please—mmmmph”

A sharp draw on her power, and Amy felt a muzzle appear on her face. She looked up at Petra, pleading, gratitude, desire, every emotion she could possibly feel painted on her face in one big chaotic maelstrom and she was lost…

But her channeler had her.

Petra wrapped a hand in her hair and pulled her head back, then nuzzled their noses together. She placed a gentle kiss on the center of the muzzle before doing something with her legs that moved Amy’s, and suddenly the source found herself sitting in her channeler’s lap.

“Just stay a moment. Just sink here for me.” Amy felt Petra pull more magic as she talked, and a blanket floated towards and around them. “You’re going to suffer some more for me in a moment, but until then I want you to rest.”

The hand still in her hair pushed her body down. Amy curled in on herself and relaxed.

She’d given Petra her feelings. Petra had caught them and had accepted them—had taken the weight of years of practice and expectation and the hurt of having done this so long and being so lost, and just taken it in. No blinking, no shock.

She might still be all talk. Her previous channeler would have said the same thing, would have approached the impossible task of mastering the bottomless desire in Amy with the same kind of arrogance. But… how could she know? She could only feel.

And right now this felt right. It had felt right then too, but what could she do?

She let her eyes close and she let herself drift. Petra’s skin was warm. The texture of her blouse was soft. Its color had matched the ice blue of Petra’s eyes, and somehow the comfortable, silky texture conveyed both the coldness and the care that seemed to rest in them. The skin on Petra’s neck was soft, if a little bit chilly. The blanket was appreciated. Amy had let herself drift into surrender. Her muscles had stopped moving, she’d let herself fully relax. Neither of them was producing much heat.

She felt a gentle draw of magic, this time generated from the safety she found in Petra rather than in devotion or fear. Submission, all the same. 

She wasn’t sure how long she floated, but eventually, Petra spoke up again. Quietly, into her ear. “I have a circle of other channelers. It’s not so much a coven, but more a place for us to compare notes and grow, for us to challenge each other and strive to be more.” She lifted her head and placed a gentle kiss on Amy’s brow. “We talked a lot in the last few months about what someone like you would look like. Someone who was our age, but a source. Looking, not because they couldn’t submit, but because they’d been displaced by circumstance, and they wanted to submit anyway.”

Amy stirred at that, but a firm press of Petra’s nails ordered her back to stillness.

“We agreed you’d be anxious,” Petra continued. “That you’d know your own unknowability and your own weakness—the way your very nature makes you vulnerable to further abuse. They bail you out, you know? The Bureau. But they don’t do rehabilitation nearly as well. There’s something about the bond that’s very ‘for life’ and they haven’t really figured out what to do when it isn’t. And we knew long ago that I’d release Lissa.”

Amy didn’t try to stir but did push her head just fractionally into Petra. At was an acknowledgment, an ‘I’m sorry for the difficulty of loving someone you knew you would let go’, a gratitude for her being here anyway. She knew what Petra was doing: The circle demonstrated self-reflection and a willingness to grow. The understanding of her feelings demonstrated that she was being considered. Amy couldn’t know if Petra was safe from her words, so Petra had already thought about the required actions.

It could be a performance, of course, but it would be a difficult one to do without genuine compassion.

“We were worried I wouldn’t find someone like you, you know? By last month, Winn was managing the dating app for me. Liss was trowling abuse records and contacting Bureau handlers. And then you stumbled across an internet posting of all places. I’m happy you exist. And I hope this works.”

Amy kept her eyes closed but smiled into the muzzle. The warmth of being desired, of being wanted, flowed up and down her body, warming her inside and out. The blanket went from comfort to comforting statement. Petra was holding Amy, just as she hopefully would for the rest of their lives.

“But for now…” Petra’s voice sharpened and she pulled her up by the hair at her scalp.

Amy gasped.

“For now you are going to enjoy something you hate for me.”

Amy opened her eyes. On their table was a blueberry parfait. A large.

The relaxed breath turned to pants. The comfort turned into fear and arousal. Her eyes widened and she froze, face still pointed at the parfait by Petra’s grip. The muzzle disappeared. Petra expected a response.

“Y— Yes miss.” She’d asked for this. They could have just cuddled, just aftercared.

“So tell me why you love blueberries,” Petra whispered.

“I— I don’t miss.” Amy watched as a spoon floated into the parfait and picked up a big scoop.

“No, little source, you do.” Petra spoke like she was explaining math to a child. “You like them a lot, and that’s why I’m feeding them to you. Why do you like them?”

Before she could speak the spoon floated into Amy’s open mouth.

A confusing mix of tart and sweet floated across her tongue. She swallowed as fast as she could. “I— I like that I never know what I’m going to get—tart or sweet.” Amy shivered. “I like that they’re unpredictable.”

Another spoon floated towards her. “Good girl,” Petra said. “More. And don’t swallow the next bite right away. Savor it.”

Amy kept the next bite in her mouth. She stared at Petra, waiting for the channeler to nod. She swallowed the moment she got permission. “I like the texture. The way they’re just a bit mushy sometimes, but very crunchy at other times.”

“Good girl.” Petra gifted her a smile. 

The spoon floated again. “All right, now try using some more positive adjectives. Mean it this time.”

Amy took the next spoonful. She tried to appreciate it. Petra gave her permission to swallow, but she didn’t. Instead, she let the blueberries sit in her mouth. She analyzed the flavor. She could enjoy tart? What was wrong with tart? And she liked sweet things. And textures, and variations, those things could be lovely. Petra tilted her head at her and smiled, approving. Yes, she could open herself up to the unexpected, open herself up to the flavors.

She swallowed. “I like that they have variation. I like that they are sweet sometimes, and tart other times. I like that they teach me to open up and to enjoy what I’m given. I like that they can be more crisp or more soft, and that I can move them around in my mouth before I bite into them. I like that they have interesting textures.”

Petra beamed down at her. “Goooood girl.” She said it like she was speaking to a dog, and Amy felt like the winter sun had personally shone on her face.

“You forgot one reason, though, little source,” Petra explained patiently. “You like them because I want you to. You like them because every time you eat one you’ll be reminded of your devotion to me.”

Some hardened, calcified part deep inside Amy cracked open at those words. “Yes miss,” she whispered as she lowered her head. “I like whatever you like.” Her heart felt like it was going to explode. 

She looked up at her channeler, seeking support. If she could see her own eyes she knew she’d find them glassy. Her face was slack. She didn’t try to mask it. She just stared at the figure rapidly assuming her rightful place at the peak of Amy’s pantheon. “Please… Please tell me what I like, god—miss.” There was a slight emotional jerk as she corrected herself.

Petra looked down at her, from one eye to the other. “What were you about to say, little source? Hmmm? It’s okay. I’ll hold it, whatever it is.” A gentle pet on the back of her head. “I’ve got you.”

Amy didn’t look up. She pressed herself deeper into Petra’s chest. She whispered the words, knew the magic that they held—not because of the words themselves, but because Amy meant them—because she could mean them, because she could mean them with all of her heart and soul. 

“Goddess.”

Amy heard a sharp, almost-suppressed intake of breath above her. Petra had been drawing magic through her all night, but at those words, she felt the draw intensify. Very fine—she was practically an infinite pool of devotion now, one that Petra would only deepen with time. 

She felt pressure around her neck. Her breath hitched. Would Petra—

“Not quite yet little thing,” Petra said. “I know you’d say yes right now, but I can’t let you do that yet.” There was a boop on her nose. “You’re not thinking straight.”

The magic left her neck and Amy glanced down. It was a band, measured around her neck but then removed from it. It was gradually gaining substance. Generating matter from nothing took an absurd amount of energy, but here they were doing it. And on a first date.

Amy looked back at the table. “May I have more blueberry, miss?”

The next few minutes were quiet. Amy slowly ate the parfait, focusing each bite on the berries and their positive qualities. Meanwhile, she clung on to Petra like her very soul depended on it. Meanwhile the collar—because it could be nothing else, because what would Petra do on the world’s most perfect first date besides use the resulting magic to craft the symbol of Amy’s eventual enslavement—slowly took form.

It was beautiful. Iridium—a touching gesture to Amy’s past. Thick but not excessive. Simple, but with an o-ring in front. And of course, no clasp. Only a channeler would be able to open and close the metal.

And each bite of blueberries brought it a little bit closer. Each bite made it a little more real.

She kept eating, bite after bite, until suddenly the spoon didn’t return and she looked at the table to find the parfait glass empty, only traces remaining on the rim. Petra chuckled above her.

The channeler petted Amy’s cheek. “Yes little source, you did it. You were a very good girl.”

Amy looked to the right. Floating above the table was the completed collar. The metal had thickened, at least a quarter of an inch thick and an inch and a half tall. It was bigger than the basic choker a source in service to a channeler typically wore. It would tell the whole world that she was more—that she was deep in submission. Government offices would call her channeler instead of talking to her. Bus drivers would take extra care of her. If she spaced out on the side of the road someone would take her home. 

After all, channelers frequently served the public good, and in that way, so did she. Even more, she was a public good. A resource that used to be a person. Most major public works projects required someone like her. She did not doubt that Petra could and would take her there.

A tap on her back brought her focus back to the present, back to the very source of her subspaced dreams.

“Come back up for me, can you do that?” Petra asked softly. “I need you a bit more present.”

“Mmmmm,” Amy began. She moved her mouth a few times. “Yes. I’m here. I’m… I’m here.”

“Okay,” Petra said. She pointed at the collar. “This is not for right now. You do actually need to go home and reflect a little bit. I’m going to send you my latest psych eval. You’ll find some annotations warning about unusually high control drives and sadism, but I don’t think you’ll find those surprising. I’ll also put you in contact with the others in my circle, and you can quiz them about me. My former source as well. I’ve asked them all to be forthright—I want this to be a good match.”

Amy nodded and gathered herself. Petra was still holding her, but it wasn’t a domineering hold, just comforting. It didn’t pressure, so Amy had no trouble pulling her locus back into her own body and reasserting her yet-independent will.

“Yes miss,” she said. “That all sounds good. You have documentation about me already?”

Petra nodded. “All the government files. Is there anything else?”

Amy shook her head. “Everything else made it into the case, so it got included in the files.”

“Good girl,” Petra said. She pulled the blanket tighter. “Then let’s stay here a few minutes, let you decompress, and then we’ll meet here again in a week.”

Amy nodded into Petra’s chest. “Sounds good.”

One week. Then she would lose her freedom.

One more week. Then she would be free.