Baby Cage (4 page)

Professor Rowland stepped closer and put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re a good student. Kayla and I want to do something of an experiment. It’ll be a special project, one with just one subject. Because of the focus and attention she’ll get, we want to make sure that individual is perfect for our needs.”

“And you want to use me?” A flutter of excitement tinged with ambition tickled through my chest. Between these two professors, they must have had dozens if not hundreds of students. Out of this entire university, they chose
me
? The annoyance from a moment ago vanished.

“Absolutely.”

Professor Kline stepped a bit closer and smiled back at me, “If you complete this project, we can offer you a pair of glowing letters of recommendation. And I can say that you’ll accomplish something no one else at this campus has ever attempted.”

Kayla nodded and giggled at the same time. Her manner and affect shifted all at once. Before, she had seemed so cold and harsh. Now her demeanor reminded me more of a girlfriend in love. She seemed willing and eager to laugh. Somehow, it felt as though she were laughing at me. But then I reminded myself how my sort of ambition often amused the older adults in my life.

“Take a moment and think about this,” Professor Kline told me. She leveled her eyes on me with the kind of focused gaze that made sure I understood the importance of her words. “This will be a fairly intense project. Unfortunately, we can’t tell you what it’ll involve exactly before hand. But I want you to read over some of the possibilities. If you’re okay with the requirements, then meet us at our home later this afternoon. Say, five o’clock?”

Seth handed me some papers, all printed and stapled in the corner. They looked official and mentioned the university’s name several time along with words like “immunity” and “indemnify”.

“I want to do it,” I said again. I sounded so certain and must have looked so incredibly foolish to them. Seriously, they could have asked me to walk across hot coals, and I would have made the attempt. That’s how eager I was to impress my teachers, especially Professors Kline and Rowland.

“Read it. Then you can come by later.” Kayla smiled again as the doors opened and some of the students from her next class started to trickle in. “But for now, I have a class.”

“Have a good time,” Seth leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. It was a strange moment for me. I didn’t usually see teachers engage in public displays of affection. The sight of my teachers in love plucked at a different cord in me. I could usually ignore my solitude by concentrating totally on my classes, but at moments like this, a twinge of lonely jealousy worked its way to the back of my throat.

Kayla turned to her class and Seth nodded for us to leave. I followed him out into the hallway, the papers still pressed between my fingers.

Before we got to the buildings main set of doors, Seth stopped so I paused too. He turned back to me. “There’s something you should know. I’m still very disappointed in how you were late today. Of all my students, I didn’t think you would be the one to ignore my warnings.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off with a glance.

“Like I said, you have a lot of potential, but it looks like you might be squandering it. So just understand, if you decide to join this project, then it’ll be very difficult. I won’t go easy on you.” It was more than that, I saw. At once, I interpreted his tone and his body language and I saw how he wanted to punish me for being late. He thought I didn’t care about his class.

Alright, I thought to myself, it didn’t matter. I could handle whatever he threw at me. I might have reconsidered if I had had even an inkling of what they planned for me.

Kayla

My last class went quickly. I sped through the PowerPoint presentations and ignored the looks of consternation on my students’ faces. I’m sure they didn’t think I noticed their scowls of frustration as one slide jumped to the next. Well tough, I said to myself, they could find these notes online. More specifically, previous generations never had the use of these sorts of resources. If they couldn’t keep up, that only proved their weakness.

Once I finished laying out the final definitions for my social psychology class, I dismissed the class, gathered up my things, and rushed from the room. Seth would be finishing up right around the same time.

I felt my body language change as I made my way across campus. The harsh professor’s exterior started to fall away and I started to grin. I felt like a little girl who just unwrapped a new toy. I had my satchel hanging from my shoulder. I tried to stare ahead and appear serious, but then my defenses broke down and I gave into my instincts. A bright smile illuminated my face and I started to skip, rushing down the sidewalk toward the building that housed the communications department.

A few students glanced back at me. If they had me before, this would have blown them away. Even if we had never met, they must have been surprised. How often could you see a professor skipping her way between the buildings like an excited preteen? Of course, if they knew the source of my excitement, then they might have become a bit concerned.

It was a good thing that no one was going to find out then. I stopped as a different kind of excitement rushed through me. A dominant, nearly feral grin touched my lips. I inhaled and savored this new anticipation. I really did feel like a girl about to get a new doll, which made perfect sense since that’s exactly what was about to happen.

As I worked my way up to becoming a psychology professor, I had a lot of time to consider my own personality. I probably spent more time thinking of myself than even my fellow students. After all, they might try to diagnose themselves as a matter of entertainment, but for me, I had to consider a very aberrant urge, one which seemed to serve as the foundation for the rest of my personality.

I wanted to dominate. There was no better way to describe it. Something inside of me longed to command and control another individual. It didn’t even matter what I had them doing, so long as I happened to be in charge. As a little girl, this seemed odd to the adults. The little boys didn’t mind. In our games, I was always the leader, whether that meant being the princess, the queen, or the general. It didn’t matter so long as I happened to command my followers.

Sure, some girls happen to be bossy. My teachers probably chalked my dominant streak up to something along those lines. Only it didn’t go away. As the other girls in my class learned to put on makeup and defer to the boys in their lives, my sense of control never went away. This wasn’t so bad. Guys still liked me and fell in love with me, and many of them were more than willing to submit to my authority. Those were the boys who followed me around like puppy dogs.

As I grew up, I learned to temper my love of power. Then I met Seth. I still smile when I think of that first faculty meeting. He and I butted heads as we both tried to influence and manipulate the outcome. Our verbal jabs and retorts created an invisible battlefield. But when we finished, I wasn’t annoyed that someone dared challenge me. In fact, he intrigued me for one reason.

Seth was no different. I sensed it at once, the way he wanted to dominate and control as well. So when the meeting let out, we approached one another. I asked him to coffee and he accepted. We started to talk and realized we had the same impulses. This should have made us into enemies. After all, there’s that old saying about how opposites attract. With us, it was different. We were both fairly mature and self-aware, so we learned to compromise.

We amused and entertained one another as we tried to take control until Seth had a suggestion. We played board games to determine who got to be the master or mistress and who had to be the slave for the night. Somehow, the idea of dominating another dominant held an extra punch of appeal for both of us. Then outside of our bedroom, we simply fell in love. He was smart and made me laugh. We teased one another and spent our free time together. Our mutual circles of friends came together at parties and movie nights until we decided to move in together.

Then Seth made a suggestion, “What if we had a pet?”

Lena

Back at my dorm room, I opened the packet and scanned through it. I read the first few paragraphs and saw that this project included some new experiments. I grabbed a couple of the phrases and tried to Google them. Nothing useful really came back, which still told me something.

This was advanced. Granted, I didn’t know if I wanted to major in psychology. Most freshmen didn’t have solidly picked majors. Sure, a few kids showed up with the intention to major in business or become the next great American writer, but then they ended up in some other discipline.

In high school, I had one goal. I wanted to get into college. I wanted to excel and succeed and dominate my competition. I wanted to prove myself as the best. A smile warmed my face as I considered the best way to use this. I considered my options, just to be certain I didn’t miss anything.

This would be perfect. I couldn’t wait to show up for the interview. In particular, I wanted to take care of this. I wanted to get this project on my resume. After a quick glance through the paperwork, I went back to studying. Seated on my bed, I checked the time and realized I should get going fairly soon.

Seth

We carpooled together. Every day, we drove from our spacious home in the suburbs around campus back to school, then home once we finished our classes and grading. After Kayla finished her classes for the day, we met at our SUV. Big and black, it looked like something government agents would drive. Kayla and I agreed on this model.

Today, I got to the vehicle first and leaned against the back bumper. Kayla emerged from the buildings and shook her head. “You’re going to try anyway?”

“Anyway?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.

“Anyway because you’re going to lose.”

“Nah, today feels like a good day,” I told her. When I first spotted her, the day seemed to drag her down until her shoulders sagged a bit. I probably appeared the same, only now I perked up. Getting to spend time with Kayla always infused me with another burst of energy and excitement.

If we proceeded ahead with Lena, then we would have entirely new games to play. These presented new risks. That injected a bit of nervousness into our interactions, but I looked forward to the games we could play. Kayla and I could do so well with a pet.

Kayla pulled me back to our current game. She raised her first up to her chest level, and I did the same. “Are you going rock today? No, I’m thinking paper for you.”

“You can’t psyche me out,” I told her. “Just try. Focus on talking and forget all about your fingers.” This was another game for us, another way to establish who would be in charge, if only for a few minutes.

We started to shake our fists together. One, two, three, and I opened my fingers. Kayla’s hand came out flat.

“I win,” I said with a smirk. “So get in the passenger’s seat. You can sit back and enjoy the ride.”

“You cheated,” mumbled my girlfriend but headed back around the SUV. I chuckled again, stretched my arms, and enjoyed this small victory.

When we had everything loaded and were ready to go, I pulled out of the parking lot and headed back down the main strip of road. It was later in the afternoon. Night students started to trickle back onto the school grounds while the commuters started to drive away. There weren’t many of either group. Our university’s student body was composed mostly of students who lived on campus. It was a very traditional school.

Kayla stared back at me for a few moments before another smile bloomed across her mouth. “Are you asking me how much I would try to reign you in?”

“Not at all. I just wanted to make sure we’re clear on the rules.”

“Spankings. Other things.”

I shook my head and continued to grin. We had discussed this before, only then those conversations all rang with a note of abstraction. Enslaving a young woman seemed like such an improbable prospect. We were college professors, both on tenure tracks. No one would have guessed how we modified our house or the sorts of games we played at night. Having someone else could make this so much more intense. Desire snaked through my chest and sped my heartbeat.

“So nothing is out of bounds?”

“Only if you get uncomfortable,” Kayla told me with her own feral grin.

I parked in our driveway and grabbed both my stuff as well as Kayla’s. In spite of our games, I still tried to take care of her. She didn’t need it, but my family raised me to be a gentleman.

At home now, we went to the kitchen and opened some wine. We drank and talked about this. We also double checked the room where Lena would be staying. There were so many things to double check, not that either of us minded. We ran through a couple of lists and settled back down, certain that we were ready.

A few minutes later, the doorbell rang.

Lena

It didn’t take much effort to find their house. I drove through the narrow streets in their neighborhood and came to a stop in front of a white house. It even had the picket fence. A big oak towered over the home, and I marveled at it for a little while. I had turned off my car’s engine, but the radio continued to sing out.

I had the paperwork. It required me to sign on the final page. I had done so before leaving my dorm room. For some reason though, my heart rate spiked. It made me think of Professor’s Kline discussion on the symptoms of stress and nervousness. Many of the early lectures in our class had centered on physical and emotional processes that seemed so obvious. She believed in starting from the ground up.