All Relationships Are About Power

“All relationships are about power,” she said. I gritted my teeth, silently willing Dr. Johnson to shut her pretty lips, but she continued. “In any relationship, one person will control the other, whether by force of will or physical force. Now Kristie, in your story here, which character is going to come out on top, Tori or Frank?”

I felt sorry for Kristie. A fellow student in this graduate creative writing class, Kristie was having to undergo the agony of having Dr. Johnson dissect her latest short story in front of the entire room. Like most of the students in this night class, Kristie was a twenty-two year-old grad student, and she didn’t seem equipped to take the scrutiny. I was the oddball, an established teacher at a local high school who was taking the course simply to improve my own writing. Unfortunately, though, instead of developing my writing I was only developing a hatred of the young blonde professor, Dr. Johnson.

Kristie hesitated, unwilling to change either of her characters, but Dr. Johnson didn’t let up her onslaught. “Really, Kristie, do you think anyone wants to read a story about two people who actually love each other, share everything, and have no conflicts? That’s pretty unrealistic, don’t you think?”

“I’d like to read about that,” I said, causing all eyes to shoot in my direction. “I think we need more stories with couples who share instead of fight.” I could sense the other students tensing up, anticipating a verbal battle. Kristie breathed deeply, glad that I would now be the target instead of her.

Dr. Johnson’s eyes narrowed and her red lips pursed as she examined me in the way that she might consider a cockroach on the floor. I hated her. Despite her beauty (her creamy smooth skin was accentuated by full lips and silky, blonde hair) and youth (at 28, she was the youngest tenured faculty member in the English department), she had a reputation for being more brutal on her students than the most traditional balding middle-aged male professor. Half her students didn’t even pass, and very few received A’s. A petite woman, she wore clothes that showed off her trim, athletic body; tonight she was wearing a flower-print sundress that revealed her perky breasts and sinewy thighs and calves. But nothing could reveal to a casual observer her vicious streak, nothing except being on the receiving end of one of her tirades. And now she was about to unload on me.

“Oh, I see, Matt. Because you teach high school English you know everything there is to know about character development, right?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead she stood up and padded over to my desk. The slap of her sandals on the hard floor reverberated in the silent room. I drew back in my chair involuntarily as she put her hands down, her red nails on my notepad, and leaned over, showing me cleavage if I had had the guts to look. “Do you think you know more about writing than I do?”

“I know more about the world than you do,” I responded, but not nearly as forcefully as I would have liked. I felt my face burning, my pulse beating, my palms sweating. I tried to meet her paralyzing gaze. Within seconds I was staring down at her slender hands.

When my head dropped, Dr. Johnson threw her head back and laughed, truly finding something funny. Straightening up, she tousled my hair and walked back to the middle of the room. The faces around the circle were confused. A few laughed with her, uncertainly.

“Come on, people, lighten up. Who was drawn into that little drama? Who was on the edge of their seats, wondering what would happen in that conflict? Would Matt come out on top? Or would I crush him? I was just acting to make a point. Conflict and power struggles are the way of the world, and in a piece of writing they generate interest.”

Everyone but me breathed more freely, and several of the students wrote notes furiously. She had made her point, and made it well. But she made it at my expense, and I was still furious. I still hated her. I wished I had never signed up to take this course. After all, I didn’t need it. I’d been teaching for years, and I didn’t need some arrogant woman ten years my junior to tell me how to write or to manipulate me like that. She actually tousled my hair, the way you would a child’s. I didn’t need that.

When the class ended I strode toward the door resolving never to return. I’d never have to see that little bitch again. Needless to say, I was surprised and angry when she met me at the doorway, blocking my path.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” she said, seeing the contempt on my face. “I was just acting to make a point. Don’t take everything so seriously.” She smiled, a warm, rich smile that bespoke genuine friendship, and I softened my stance in spite of myself. “Look,” she said, suddenly playful and completely unlike her normal rigid persona, “why don’t I cook you dinner tonight to make up for it?”

I was stunned. Seconds ago I had rejoiced in my decision never to see Dr. Johnson again, and now she was offering to make me dinner. She giggled at my confusion. “Please, let me make you some pasta. I owe it to you.” Her dimples outweighed my better judgment, and in ten minutes we were in her car, heading to my apartment.

If her class was hell, then conversation with her now was heaven. No longer was she Dr. Johnson, but Robin. She was charming, curious, respectful. She was also a good cook. But underneath it all, there was still and undercurrent, one which rose to the surface as we washed the dishes together.

“I can tell you’re still annoyed about my comments in class,” she said.

At first I thought to deny it, but decided to go ahead and let my feelings out. “Yeah, I am. Mainly I just don’t think that one person has to be in control of another. I think people can be partners.”

“Oh, don’t be naïve. One person is always in control.”

“All right. Take us. We don’t have a relationship, any attachment, so neither one of us is in control,” I said. “That’s where you’re wrong,” she said, smiling. “I’m in control.”

“Come on,” I argued. “Maybe you guide the conversation, and you give grades in class, but right now we are just two people talking.”

“Do I need to prove it?” she asked.

“How on earth would you prove it?”

“I’ll make you say it,” she said.

“You might be smart, a super-professor, but you can’t outwit me into saying that.”

She giggled. “Ok, I won’t outwit you. I’ll overpower you, if that’s what it takes.”

I stepped to meet her toe to toe and looked down at her. We both laughed. I was six inches taller, at least fifty pounds heavier. She knew that I ran every day, swam three times a week, competed in triathlons and other endurance events. But even though we were laughing, she wasn’t backing down.

“All right,” I said finally. “Let’s go to the living room where we have some space.” As she skipped ahead of me, I wondered what was going on. Was she making some kind of play for me? Was this her way of making a pass?

When we got into the living room she pushed my coffee table to the side and turned to face me. She extended her hands, fingers spread, inviting me to a game of “Mercy.” I shook my head in disbelief at this challenge, and she shrugged sheepishly.

We locked fingers and began to test one another. Her hands were warm and firm, and her thin fingers stronger than I would have ever imagined. Even so, I was stronger, and my size gave me an edge in leverage; soon I was bending her wrists backward. Abruptly she reversed our hands, spinning hers upside down, and in doing so she was able to bend my wrists back and force them upward. I yelped and rose to my toes to try to escape the pain. But I ignored her taunts and slowly managed to regain the edge, forcing her wrists back. Her thin fingers bit into mine, her red nails dug into the backs of my hands, but my strength was prevailing. Our hands were sweating. Robin was no longer smiling; now her teeth were clenched and the small, feminine muscles in her bare arms were popping out. But I continued to push her back.

Without warning, she slipped her right hand out of my grasp and darted behind me, still maintaining her grip on the fingers of my right hand. With a jerk she wrapped my right arm across my neck and pushed me forward from behind.

“That’s not fair,” I gagged.

“We don’t have any rules,” she hissed in my ear as she forced me into a kneeling position. I found myself on my knees, my head and shoulder on the cushions of my sofa. Robin was straddling my lower back, forcing my face into the cushions with one hand and pulling my right arm tightly around my neck with her other hand. She straddled my lower back, preventing me from backing up or bucking her off. I squirmed and grunted but couldn’t dislodge her.

“Who is in control?” she asked sweetly, her moist breath tickling my ear. I refused to answer, bucking instead in vain. She jerked my arm again and began to cut off both my air and blood flow–humiliatingly–with my own arm.

Using my left arm I tried to push away from the sofa. Robin anticipated this move and released my head and grabbed my left wrist. With a quick twist she had me in a hammerlock. Now I completely immobile. I squealed in spite of myself, whimpering in pain. “Big strong man, big athlete…who is in control?” she asked in the tone of voice a kindergarten teacher asks whether a child would like to use the restroom.

After a minute, when it was far past obvious that I couldn’t escape, Robin released me and stepped away. I slowly turned and rose to my feet, massaging my arm where she had twisted it behind my back.

“Who is in control?” she asked.

“You’ll never make me say it,” I spat.

“Oh, a little grumpy, aren’t we?” she said, her voice wet with condescension. I was furious… and aroused. She smiled, clearly aroused also. She began to step out of her dress, showing a skimpy cotton bra and panties underneath, and I stripped off my shirt. Her smile remained but it was tempered with determination. She knew that I wasn’t going to be a pushover. We circled each other warily, and without talking we understood each other: neither one of us was going to roll over and be submissive. The winner would prevail only through force, not by acquiescence.

She moved toward me and I tackled her, hard. Robin grunted and tried to slide away but I quickly straddled her hard stomach and secured both her wrists. I wasn’t taking anything for granted this time. My male size and strength were too much, and I stretched her arms out to her sides, pulling them as far as I could. She kicked her legs fruitlessly and grimaced. I had her pinned beneath me. Her hair spread out from her face like the corona of the sun. Despite her anger, she was beautiful as she struggled underneath me. “Who is in control?” I asked.

“OK,” she said at last as I looked straight down at her. “You’ve got me pinned. But I can stay here all night. You can’t make me give up.” A smug smile crossed her lips. So I rose up a foot off her and then smashed my butt down onto her stomach. She grunted as the air shot out of her. I bounced again and again. She was near tears, seemingly helpless.

“Who is in control?” I asked, feeling good, knowing that I was in control. She didn’t answer, so I rose up to splash her again.

In the split second I lifted off her, Robin managed to pull her knees to her chest, blocking my splash. Suddenly I was no longer straddling her. Now we were rolling around the carpet, each struggling for control. I managed to force her arms to the floor but couldn’t control her legs, and she flipped me off. Again and again the same scenario: as soon as I seemed to pin her, she struggled and bucked and somehow bucked me off. Minutes went by, then ten minutes. We knocked the coffee table over. Books and magazines were strewn across the floor. A lamp fell.

Eventually I found myself behind her, holding her in a full nelson flat on the floor. I was exhausted, holding on with the last of my strength while she struggled beneath me. Our wrestling match had drained me of everything. Sweat ran off my body onto hers. Her hair, wet with perspiration, stuck to my face. She tried to reverse head butt me but I kept my nose and mouth out of harm’s way. My crotch drove down on her rear end, and I could tell this infuriated her. “Who is in control?” I asked her, my voice pleading her to give up.

“I am,” she replied. As she spoke she reached behind her head and clawed at my hands which were locked together, securing the full nelson. She managed to seize the fingers of my right hand and slowly but surely pull it away. I fought gamely but couldn’t match her strength or determination. Then she did the same with my left. Suddenly she was out of my hold and on her feet.

I had barely risen to my knees before she circled behind me and shoved me to the floor. My reactions were in slow motion. She grabbed my wrists and pulled, while planting her foot in between my shoulder blades. I heard her laugh as she yanked, two, three times. When she release my arms they fell limply to the floor.

Robin rolled me over and I could barely struggle as she pinned me easily, crossing my wrists and holding them to the floor above my head, then squeezing my arms tightly to the side of my head with her milky white thighs. She grinned like a schoolgirl as she reached down with her slim fingers and pinched my nose and covered my mouth. I could barely hear her asking me a question as I kicked my legs feebly: “Who is in control?”

I wanted to tell her she was in control. I wanted to give up. But the tunnel vision had begun, with everything around the edge of my sight becoming black. My last memory was of her red, glistening lips taunting me.

It must have been only a few minutes later when I awoke. She was dragging me by the feet down my own hallway, making horrible rug burns on my back. I tried to grab at a doorway to stop her, but found that my hands were bound with my own belt. She had stripped me completely, and gagged me with my own underwear. I was completely at her mercy…it was like a cavewoman dragging a caveman back to her lair after conquering him in battle.

Robin dragged me into my own bedroom and stood over me. I tried to roll over, tried to get away. Her small foot, petite, with perfectly polished red toenails, was inches from my face. She used it to roll me to my back again and then planted her foot on my throat. My efforts to get away were was mild as a newborn kitten’s efforts to escape a bear…nevermind the fact that she resembled the kitten and I the bear.

“Who is in control?” she asked. I couldn’t answer because her foot on my throat cut off my speech. She giggled, then released me. Reaching down, she pulled me to my feet by my hair and marched me in front of my mirror. She yanked my head back and forced me to stare. I saw bruises and abrasions all over my face and body. Her face, still beautiful, glowed with sweat and victory. She dug her red nails into my neck and I winced and whimpered.

“Who is in control?” she asked.

“You are! Robin is!” I cried.

“God, I love teaching,” she said. When she let me go I dropped to the floor at her sexy feet. I was broken, and in love.