"You will be mine by prom."

Just hearing her say those words sent chills down my spine. I'd never noticed her before, I mean noticed sure, but not really noticed. Not as in paid attention to, but suddenly she had my full attention. I noticed every detail of her black skirt (short but not above the knees) red sweater (baggy not tight) and black sneakers. She wore glasses (rectangular lenses, gunmetal frames) as all sexy girls should. And cliché or not her hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

Given all these excellent facts I should have paid attention previously but she was always one of those, intellectual girls I guess, you know the type: math and science club, environmental club and this or that club ad nauseum. Of course, I say this with all the disdain appropriate to a proud member of his high school chess team. I'm quite aware many of my readers will think I'm trying for irony here. I'm not. Chess is one of those activities that allows it's practitioners (like say, high school football) to believe they are morally superior to those who don't practice it. It's just the rest of the students at most high schools accept this theory from the gods of the gridiron and not from the barons of the boards. Okay, no one actually refers to chess players as barons of the boards, not even other chess players. But you try alliteration with material like that. But I digress...

Now in a better world she, her name was Marni but I'm going to call her Tracy, which I think is a much sexier name, would have said this to me. She didn't. And she didn't say this to the quarterback of the football team. She said it to the star running back of the football team. You never saw it coming.

She should have been saying it to me. How many times had I fantasized about a girl coming up to me, staring deep into my eyes and telling me that I would belong to her and there was nothing I could do about it? Did not I have my room decorated with large posters of the White Queen (my favourite villain from X-Men) nearly busting out of her corset? Was not my favourite movie Once Bitten with Jim Carrey before he was a star because of the amazing femdom scenes? And weren't we well suited as a couple, I a chess phenomenon (well the second best player on the team at least) and her queen of the geek clubs?

Instead she was wasting this wondrous fantasy fulfillment on a clod of a football player who just laughed in her face, albeit a trifle uneasily. Two cheerleaders, Kim and Julia, who were hanging about Darren (the aforementioned star running back) glared at her.

"Back off geek-queen, football players are cheerleader property." Kim said.

"Yeah he wants a hard body" she said pausing to blow in his ear "not a book worm."

Note the high quality of these insults. In that instant I repented of all the dreams I'd had of these air headed cheerleaders turning into the nefarious femme fatale's of my fantasies. But Tracy merely turned her head and flounced off (the benefit of wearing a skirt, even a conservative one) leaving a stunned set of jocks and jockette's in her wake.

Now lot's of guys in my position in high school (nerd, geek or just chronically unpopular) probably secretly envied the football team. They got the girls, teachers went easy on them, nobody screwed with them, whatnot. I had not. Like I said before, I wore the arrogance of the chess player like a badge, and viewed others lacking my intellectual gifts and discipline with haughty contempt. Now however, I truly envied them. Or at least Darren, he'd stepped into the starring role in my recurring fantasy and left me agape with vile jealousy. Why not me? Wasn't I good enough to be her slave? Did she think she was too cool for me to lick her boot? I'd show her!

But how?

And what if she was right? What if I wasn't good enough? Perhaps, there was more to life than books and chess? And then the epiphany hit me, I would have to change. I would become the person she would want to enslave.

I have perhaps given the impression that chess practice was my safe haven, the one place where the problems of the world receded and I could ponder the abstract rhythm and tactics of the king of all games. In a better world this would be the case. Have I mentioned that this is not a better world? It isn't and believe me God's going to hear about it from me when we get our face to face. In this world I was the second best player on the team. Because the best player was a stoner dirt bag who had spent the whole summer studying chess and discovered he possessed an impressive talent for it.

So my junior year where I should have been captain and leader I was instead second to a guy who rode a motorcycle to school, wore a leather jacket, washed his hair about once a decade and was lead singer of an underground band. And I would have kicked his ass on general principle but the last time we fought he'd tossed me around like a rag doll.

Need I add that he was the only player on the team with a date come Saturday night, and often 2 or 3. He had a flock of girls who were groupies and training and whom the chess coach called "the billetes" since Bill had his pick of them. It wasn't till I served in the Navy that I got that joke.

However once I was engaged in a game my troubled did slip away and my mind knew only tactics and symmetry and I danced the dance of pure mental combat. I could normally win the majority of games against every opponent save Bill. He'd studied more openings and theory than I was willing to and rarely did I survive the traps of the opening and if I did his endgame (again well researched) was superior enough to gain him the victory. That a slacker and dirt bag had more resolve to study the game I professed to love than I did was an irony that was not lost on me.

"So if someone else has everything you want fall into his lap should you be bitter?" I asked my chess coach Mr. Kern.

"Is this about Bill again, if you want to beat him you're going to have to study. It's that simple."

"No Mr. K, it's not about Bill this time, I'm jealous of a football player, Darren."

"You're jealous of a jock. That's not like you Joe."

"I know, but this girl, well she just enacted one of my deepest fantasies for his benefit."

"You mean she took off her glasses and shook out her ponytail?"

"Dude, I'd have given anything to have seen that." That last contribution was from Steve one of my best friends on the team and the man who had introduced me to the Wildcards series of novels and Dragon Poker.

"No not that one."

"She put on panda ears and black eye makeup?" asked Mr. Kern.

"No not that one either."

"She wore the white queen's corset and thigh high stiletto heeled boots?" asked Steve. I took in a deep breath and my eyes got kind of glassy as I contemplated Tracy wearing the White Queen's garb.

I can't swear it but I think Mr. K took that opportunity to switch around a couple of pieces because when my breathing became normal again and that beautiful image receded from the foreground of my mind I was facing certain defeat.

"Did you move anything Mr. K?" I asked.

"Absolutely not" he said with just the right degree of offended dignity. I can't prove it, but I'd bet my life he switched those pieces. God he was a great teacher.

"Well anyway Steve, it wasn't that one either. She walked right up to Darren and she, her name is Tracy, and she stared into his eyes and said "You'll be mine by Prom." Then the cheerleaders gave her shit and she flounced off. And left Darren with this stunned deer in the headlights look. It was amazing. But now I realize, she'll never try and enslave the second best player on the chess team, even if we did finish first in the state tournament last year.

"Well maybe I'll help you study and you can beat Bill and be the best player on the team." Steve said.

"I don't think that's going to be enough Steve. I have to be someone a girl would want to be with, I have to become an athlete."

"But you're not athletic. You're not big enough to be a football player, not agile enough for basketball, and not fast enough to sprint. You're scrod."

This was true enough but very depressing. Then, as he had before and would again, Mr. Kern came to my rescue.

"You're going to have to become a wrestler. It's one of those sports for the non athletic. Much like long distance running and shot putting. And just as long distance runners are destined by god to lead better lives than sprinters so too will wrestlers prevail over football players for discipline is better than talent."

"Kind of like Bill and me in chess?"

"I have spoken and will say no more" Mr. K. said. I hate it when he gets all oracular and shit. But everyone you love will have at least one habit that pisses you off. But I wouldn't learn that till much later in life.

So I became a wrestler. I spent the next month getting my ass handed me to the mat and trying to attend late night chess practice sessions with Mr. K since I couldn't make it to scheduled practices anymore. I was so busy I hardly ever saw my family, which as always is a plus, and I was distracted mostly from thinking about Tracy, either of her enslaving Darren which pissed me off while turning me on, or wearing the those leather thigh high boots of Emma Frost (the White Queen) which would cause me to drool and whimper a bit.

But everyday from my locker I saw Tracy walk up to Darren, dressed conservatively and nicely tell him he would be hers by prom and walk off. This became a routine to start my day and his, I would always wait by my locker till the ritual occurred, and one day when she was running a few minutes late I realized so was he.

After that she would always wait to a few seconds before the bell causing me and Darren to have to run to our first class. He would always make it being fast, and I would always be late. Luckily I had the secret weapon of sarcasm. I would buy a bagel and an orange juice and saunter into my morning class saying "Sorry teach, got here as fast as I could." Later in college I would do this with a coke and a pretzel and a "Sorry Prof." but that was the only difference. Oh and I sauntered better, but you do that as you get older. It's one of the few benefits.

One day the cheerleaders of the moment, decided to beat her ass. They jumped her in the bathroom between classes and beat her pretty bad. I only saw the after effects and heard the rumors. She had a black eye, and her shirt was torn and she had a bloody nose. It only made her more attractive in my eyes, but by then I don't think I was capable of finding her unattractive. Sure it was Darren she was saying "You'll be mine by prom" to. But I heard her saying it to me every night before I went to sleep staring into her sparkling green eyes and sinking into their lambent depths.

The teachers all loved her and when her math teacher saw her disheveled state he asked her what happened. She was a standup girl and never a rat. She just parted her swollen pouty lips and said "I fell." giving a brave little smile. You fell Mrs. Goldman asked her.

"All those bruises and your black eye came from a fall?"

"I fell a lot." was Tracy's deadpan response. The entire class broke up laughing. They stopped laughing when Mrs. Goldman sent Tracy to the nurse and gave everyone else a surprise quiz. This happened again in all of Tracy's other classes. From the "I fell a lot" to the surprise quiz it played out like a script. When a couple of the punk girls made the connection that these surprise quizzes that just sent them from barely passing to slightly failing was the result of a couple of cheerleaders jumping Tracy, well to say they were well and truly pissed was an understatement.

The next day Julie and Kim came to school with faces one and a half times their normal size and the colors on them were decidedly not makeup unless they are selling bruise colored foundation these days. For the rest of her high school career no one so much as threatened Tracy with physical violence. Let's take a silent moment in praise of punk rock girls.

Now to resume our narrative. I actually showed unexpected talent at wrestling and put on quite a few pounds. By no means big enough to step on the football field, but big enough to start winning most of my matches in the lightweight division. By Christmas I'd even won a second place trophy at a prestigious tournament. Notice I don't say brought home because I didn't bring anything important to me to my house, I left them all with scattered friends. I didn't want anything weighing me down the moment I had to bail from there. Everyone knew the day I graduated I'd leave my family to never look back, and it was only the importance of a high school diploma keeping me there now.

So I was getting stronger and gaining friends and popularity. My chess suffered some and I was only the fourth best player on the team now. And still Tracy paid no attention to me despite my attempts to start a conversation with her. She had eyes only for Darren who she greeted everyday with the same message. If I wasn't so busy envy would have swallowed me whole.

Then there was a shift in the game. We were getting ready for midterms, big things back in high school. So she approached Darren with a beautifully typed outline of the bear of a history course we were all studying. The hardest teacher in the school Mr. Gorman was teaching it, and it was even odds that half the class would fail.

"Darren I have something for you" she said in that sweet seductive voice of hers. I could roll around in that voice. I could drown in it like sinking into molasses and die smiling.

"What do you want Tracy?" Darren said tiredly. I guess it's tough being stalked. He'd tried going to school officials but Tracy wasn't breaking any rules with her little game. If she hadn't been a top-notch student perhaps they might have come down on her, but she said she was just doing research in applied psychology and the school was letting it go at that.

"It's what you want. It's this outline of the course that I'd like to give to you, on one condition of course."

"I'm not going to the prom with you Tracy" he said a little too quickly. Darren was renown for his ice like cool under pressure but Tracy had seriously unnerved him. All men are daunted, no matter how we try and hide it, by assertive women.

"I'm not asking you to. All you have to do is say "Tracy I am already yours" and I'll give you this helpful little study guide.

"There's no way I'm saying that. It's enough I have to listen to you tell me I'll be yours by prom everyday."

"If it's so annoying why do you wait for it everyday?"

"What?"

"Everyday I approach you 30 seconds before the bell. And everyday you're at your locker at that time. Why not go to class early?"

Darren had no response. He hadn't consciously realized he'd begun waiting for her to start his day. The conditioning had been done so slowly the revelation struck him like a gun shot.

Taking advantage of Darren's confusion Tracy pressed on. "Did you know the school senate passed a new rule that no one with a failing grade on any midterm goes on academic probation and can't participate in any athletic activities until new quarter grades are in?"

"What? Huh? No way the senate would pass a stupid rule like that."

"It's to enhance our schools academic reputation, and I should know being president of the academic senate."

"Damn you Tracy, that's black mail!"

"Now don't worry, you won't have any trouble passing, with my study guide that is." The cheerleaders hissed at her, and glared fit to kill but they'd learned their lesson. Tracy knew these were defanged snakes so ignored them.

"Now I'm not asking so much, just say you are already mine and you can have this. Surely you've said things you didn't believe to be true before? Where's the harm?" Oh readers, do beware the girls who say 'Where's the harm?' Such logic will lead you far astray.

But poor overwhelmed Darren had been neatly outmaneuvered and bewildered by his brilliant opponent and acquiesced. "I'm already yours Tracy" he said. And she handed him the outline saying "I know." and flouncing off. I followed the bounce of her skirt all the way down the hallway, and continuing to stare long after she'd passed out of sight.

"Tracy again" Steve said when he walked by and saw my thousand yard stare. I could only nod agreement.

"Your chess is starting to suck you know?" Again I nodded. It was true.

"At least you're not getting your ass kicked so much in wrestling." I nodded again. That was true as well.

"And your conversational skills have become made of ass." This last he said with genuine heat.

"You're ass. My repartee is still as sharp and keen as The Yeoman's arrows."

"Yeah well, your wits are as dull a poem by Starshine if you think just being a wrestler is going to get the girl."

"And what should I be doing?"

"You should run for president of the academic senate, or maybe class president."

"But the current president is one of my best friends, he's the guy who introduced me to Social Distortion. He took me to my first concert and pushed me into my first mosh pit. I got my first black eye because of him when some guy in the pit socked me when I crashed into his girlfriends tits."

"Accidentally of course."

"Of course. Not that I didn't cop a feel as long as I was there."

"It would have been impolite not too. Would have said you didn't think she was attractive."

"Of course."

"The guy kicked your ass right?"

"Oh yeah, wall to fricking wall."

"Good for him. Speaking of..."

"Oh yeah, all the wrestling. I think I can kick Bill's ass now."

"Good enough that he couldn't play chess for a few weeks?"

"Pretty sure. A good half nelson with a chicken wing ought to do it."

"Good. I want to lead the team when we go to state tournament."

"What did Mr. K say?"

"He said what he always says..."

"No witnesses" we chorused together. In that moment I loved Steve like the brother I never had. I'd gladly kick Bills ass for him. And as payback for him kicking my ass last time.

We only finished fifth at the state tournament but Steve led the team. Bill was home nursing a broken arm. Seem some thug jumped him in a dark alley and took his wallet. Guy was wearing a ski mask too. With a skeleton holding a martini glass. That's the Social Distortion symbol. But I was nowhere near that alley at the time, just ask Steve.

So December turned into January, then February. I ran for the academic senate and became a senator at large. Still she ignored me. I signed up to run against my friend Andy to be next year's class president. He gave me a hurt look when he found out but sympathized when I told him it was for a girl. I gave him the full story over a mountain dew and half of a domino's pizza (No one ate Papa John's back then sadly)

"You're going about this all wrong you know?"

"No, if I knew that I'd go about it differently. Mr. K told me to become a wrestler and I did. It's not working."

"Did Mr. K tell you to go into politics?"

"No that was Steve."

"And does Steve usually give you good advice?"

"NO, not really know. Why do you ask?"

"Does Darren do politics?"

"No."

"But she's enslaving him, right?"

"Yeah. But I need to get her attention. I have to become popular."

"Is the class president popular?"

"Usually."

"Am I?"

"No, you're too cool to be popular. Too punk."

"Exactly it's just usually popular kids become class president. Being class president doesn't make you popular."

"Oh, I'll withdraw from the race. But how will I get her to notice me."

"You're going to have to step up and win first place in your weight class."

"But I have won first place at a tournament."

"But not at States. Then you'll go on to nationals. No one in the last ten years has gone from our school to Nationals."

"I'd have to put all my time into wrestling. I'd fall way behind in my studies. "

"I'll help you out. Besides you're planning on joining the military right after high school anyway. Who cares about grades?"

"I have to pass. I can't wait another summer to graduate. I'll go bugfuck. And I'll have to quit the chess team."

"Is she worth it?"

"She's worth everything."

"Just to be her slave?" Like with Steve earlier I could only nod. Maybe my skills as a conversationalist were going to hell.

Weeks went by. I trained harder and harder. I quit the chess team. dropped out of the race for president and Andy tutored me in my classes. Tracy periodically made Darren say he was hers in exchange for papers and outlines. I burned with jealousy every morning that I saw her tell him that he would be hers. Why not me? What did it take. Though I knew. I had to become a star athlete, just like Mr. Frickin All American Darren Wilson.

States was coming up next weekend. 10 days to prepare. 10 days till my shot at winning Tracy's heart. Or at least at proving I was worth enslaving. Meanwhile I took down my pictures of the White Queen. I even took down my poster of Olivia Newton John as a greaser Dominatrix, even thought that movie was my introduction to femdom and the start of my lifelong fetish for smoking. I scoured the internet and school papers for pictures of Tracy and put them on my wall instead for inspiration. She was my queen and my goddess and I would win at States for her and go on to Nationals. Everything else faded into the background.

It was a unique experience for me. Sure I could immerse my mind in a chess game, but never had I been so concentrated over such a long time. I was focused on my goal like a laser beam, I would defeat all comers and I would take my rightful place at her feet. Classes, friends, and even my family became blurry and indistinct. Entire days went by when I didn't hate my father at all, I didn't say hi to my friends. When I wasn't wrestling I was thinking about wrestling. Going over holds and movements in my head. I was obsessed and I stayed that way. Even Tracy was only a distant mantra in my head. And of course a burning presence across the hall every morning, only all that heat was directed at the unworthy Darren. Jealousy stoked my coals even hotter.

The coach remarked about my intensity on the mat. He held me up as an example to the team. This only made the rest of the team try harder to take me down. As an exercise I had to wrestle every guy on the team, almost all of them heavier and stronger. Most of them beat me but only the heavy weights pinned me. I hustled like I'd never hustled before.

When T-day arrived we bussed out to the tournament. We sang rugby songs, (there are no wrestling songs) and army songs and we hit the tournament hard. By the fifth round, the semi finals, only me and one of the heavy's were still competing. I wrestled a guy just as intense, just as strong, but my technique was better. All that reviewing holds and mat strategy in my head paid off. Our heavyweight got eliminated in the semis. I was the only guy from out team going into the finals in any weight class. And if I won I'd be the first in over a decade to do so. But I was going against a monster. A lower middle weight who won his weight class this year, but because of the higher competition had cut weight to enter as a light weight this year. He was 6 pounds heavier and had a much lower center of gravity. And he would be much stronger than me. For the first time in weeks I believed I might lose. I began to doubt myself.

He had a stare like a laser beam and mine had become as intimidating as a .22 or a bee bee gun. The first period I managed not to get pinned but that was all. He dominated that part of the match. My coach was yelling at me. Steve and Mr. K and Andy were there yelling. Steve yelled "Be like Jumping Jack Flash!' Andy yelled "I don't want to have tutored you for nothing you sorry sack of horseshit!"

But it was Mr. K who reminded me in a low voice "Long distance runners and wrestlers are destined by god to lead better lives than Sprinters and Football players" that inspired me to give it all I had. But it wasn't enough. The guy had better technique and just as much hustle. And he was stronger. He was powering me down to the mat when I saw her, Tracy, standing on her seat on the bleachers, and I think she was wearing a white corset though that could have been the dizziness and the glare and I heard her voice saying "win for me slave" and in that moment I realized the monster from Manalapan was off base, I twisted and his shoulders hit the rubber. I dropped my hips and held him in place while the ref slapped the mat. I'd won the match. With the last of my breath I ran to the bleachers but I saw no sign of Tracy.

The guys picked me up on their shoulders and the coach cursed me good- naturedly. But I could only wonder had it been enough, had I caught Tracy's eye? And did I hallucinate that vision of her. And hallucination or real had she been wearing the White Queen's corset. I thought about her all night long as I masturbated for the first time in weeks. It's like for some reason I felt I was finally allowed a release and it was all right to think of my Goddess in that way. My body was so bruised and battered that I had to be very gentle with myself. But I was unable to resist touching myself several times that night every time imagining Tracy shining over me like a benediction, I locked the door, blasted Social D as loud as I could, the dissonant sound of Mike Ness's voice ringing through the house. My father pounded on the door, yelling imprecations and threatening to kick me out in the morning. But I could barely hear him, and when I turned the volume up to 11 I couldn't hear him at all. But I could still hear Tracy's soft seductive voice telling me I was hers while the radio screamed about Bad luck, being born to lose, making believe and cold feelings in the night. It was the best night of my life.

The next morning Tracy walked up to Darren and before she could open her mouth Darren said "Fine, Tracy, you win I'll go to prom with you." Kim and Julie stood mouths hanging open for a moment, then ran down the halls to cry to their friend Amanda. Amanda would fix things they thought.

"I don't want you to go to prom with you."

"But, but, I don't understand. This whole year you've been telling me I'll be yours by Prom."

"I did say that, and you are mine" she said staring into his eyes "but I was never talking to you." And she turned, and her skirt flounced but she didn't walk away, rather she did from him but walked right up to me. And stared into my eyes. Beautiful green eyes, the color of my dreams, sparkling like the morning star.

"You are mine aren't you, slave?" she asked but it wasn't much of a question. She brushed a stray hair across my forehead and away from my eyes. I stared into hers and like so often those days I could only nod.

"Don't worry," she said "for now you don't have to talk. Just nod. You can do that can't you?" I nodded.

"You belong only to me. I own you don't I?" I nodded. She did.

"And you probably want to know why I've been going up to Darren all this time." I nodded. Far be it from to me to question my goddess and my luck but I was curious. I could be curious as long as Tracy hadn't told me not to.

"I approached him so that you would realize belonging to me was an honour. And that you would see what you could accomplish on your own to be worthy of me. I always liked you Joe, even when you were just an arrogant chess player. But I wanted you to be more. There was so much potential going to waste, mostly to spite your father. I wanted you to have positive motivation. I wanted you to be worthy of me."

"And now I am" I said.

"Shut your voice tube unworthy filth!"

"Yes Mistress."

"Call me Tracy."

"Yes Tracy."

"Good." She said. And smiled. It was a smile like the dawning of a new day. She pulled her ponytail out and beautiful layers of chestnut hair fell across her shoulders and back. She took her glasses off and then hearing my sigh of disappointment put them back on. Far from me to criticize my goddess but even superlative beauty can be increased with glasses.

"You are not yet worthy. But with work you might become so. But I don't want a cringing slave. You will be your normal self until such time as I tell you to shut your voice tube and then your only thoughts will be mine. Do you understand slave?"

"Yes my goddess... I mean yes Tracy."

"You may call me goddess."

"Thank you Tracy... I mean goddess."

"Stop fawning. Tracy or goddess will do, they are after all interchangeable."

"That's what I love about you Tracy you're so humble."

"Shut your voice tube."

"Yes my goddess."

"We're going to have such fun. I can't wait for prom. And you are going to win at nationals." She said. Then hesitated. "Stop fawning and answer me honestly."

"Probably not."

"And if I told you that you must win or I wouldn't let you be my slave anymore."

"Then I would win or die trying."

"Good slave" she said and tousled my hair. I was so hard from this condescending gesture it was almost painful. She saw me wince and caressed my cock through my jeans.

"That kind of hurts I said."

She kneeled in front of me and kissed it through the jeans. I collapsed to my knees and our faces were even. I stared into her eyes.

"I was a fool for not noticing you earlier."

"Most men are."

I allowed how this was true and we kissed. I leaned towards my goddess, wrapped her thin frame in my strong, thickly muscled arms. She felt dainty and small but I knew her hold on me was more powerful than the strong nuclear force. Our lips met, and hers were soft and tasted of honey. Her hair smelled of lavender and felt like silk where it touched my skin.

Later in her room, I caressed her bounteous breasts. She told me to go down her and I knee-jerk responded saying I don't eat slime.

"Shut your voice tube." She said seductively and next thing I knew I was eating a girl out for the rest of my life. She tasted sweet as molasses and butter and I worshipped her with my tongue till she told me to stop. Then she told me to stop fawning and I bit her breast. She giggled and swatted me affectionately.

I tried so hard to win at Nationals I suffered a broken arm and heat stroke. I probably would have killed myself in the semifinals if she hadn't commanded me to lose. I wish I could say our love lasted forever but it was high school and did not survive through college. And she never told me whether or not that was her in the bleachers. But the night after she broke up with me, as I lay whimpering on the bed drowning a broken heart in Mountain dew and vodka, she entered my room silent as despair wearing a perfect replica of the White Queen's outfit including long cigarette holder. And for that night she made all of the demons go away. And I know should she ever appear in my life again and whisper in my ear to shut my voice tube I would again be her willing slave.