Chapter 4
Alex
I put my phone down as if it had bitten me. I stared at the dark screen for a few seconds, heart beating too hard for something as stupid as words on an app.
Then I picked it up again.
I told myself I wasn’t interested in Porter B.
specifically. That would have been too humiliating to admit, even to myself.
I was interested in understanding the market, in seeing what kind of men actually used this thing, in figuring out whether there was any version of it that didn’t amount to signing myself over to some polished sadist with a sports car and a taste for spanking young women.
I told myself that story while I kept reading his profile.
Established… discreet… demanding.
The phrases found a place in my mind: one I didn’t give them voluntarily.
I disliked their presence especially because they did not seem to enter my thoughts as abstractions, the way I thought they should.
The words called up sensations in my body.
The remembered sting of leather. The feel of a hand at the back of my head.
The awful, melting stillness that had come over me when a man had spoken as if he expected to be obeyed and some buried part of me had answered him before my pride could get there first.
I shut the app.
I opened it again.
I closed Porter B.’s profile and went back to browsing other sponsors, though most of them seemed either cruder or more ridiculous after him.
One wanted a ‘sweet little homemaker type’ and listed required grooming standards in bullet points.
Another described his ideal associate as ‘college-aged, cooperative, and eager to be improved.’ I hated them all.
I also kept reading. By midnight I had done enough of that to make myself feel soiled.
I finally plugged in my phone, set it face down on the nightstand, and tried to sleep.
An hour later it buzzed.
The sound jolted through me so sharply that I snatched it up before it could buzz again, as if someone might somehow hear my desperation through the wall. The notification banner glowed in the dark.
Your associate profile has been approved.
That was all. Not desire. Not rescue. Just approval, as neat and bloodless as a bank alert. Still, my stomach tightened.
I opened the app at once.
A little gold check now sat beside my profile picture.
Beneath it, a line informed me that my profile was active and visible to sponsors in my selected area.
Visible. The word made my skin prickle. I imagined myself arranged in a display case somewhere only rich men could access: age, measurements, education, little polished headshot, little careful sentences about clarity and respect, all of it translating in their minds into a body they might rent and rule.
I had the urge to delete my profile from the app, and then the app itself, right then.
Instead I checked twice more before sleeping, though of course no one had written in the eleven minutes since approval, and then once again in the morning before I even brushed my teeth.
Nothing.
At work I became ridiculous, at least to myself.
Every time my phone vibrated in my apron pocket, I felt a hot pulse of anticipation and then a corresponding collapse when it turned out to be a delivery update, a spam text, a friend from college sending me a meme I didn’t have the emotional resources to appreciate.
I hated myself for checking the app between drink orders.
I hated myself more for the little flare of disappointment each time I found the inbox empty.
By ten-thirty I had decided that any serious sponsor would wait at least a day before reaching out, if only to avoid looking overeager.
By noon I had decided my profile was probably too stiff, too obviously written by someone trying not to admit her desperation.
By two, while wiping down the pastry case, I found myself wondering whether Porter B.
had seen it and dismissed me in less than a second.
Too buttoned-up. Too proud. Not honest enough about my actual need for structure—or, at least, willing to lie about needing it.
The phrase had embedded itself in my head like a splinter.
Need for structure. Need for… discipline.
The way that word floated to the top of my mind angered me enough to restore some sanity. I did not have a need for structure, let alone discipline. I had a need for rent money after having made a temporary failure of judgment.
Unfortunately, the app did not seem interested in my preferred distinctions.
I checked again during my break. Then in the restroom. Then on the walk home, with cold wind catching my hair and my feet aching in my cheap work shoes.
Nothing.
I had not expected silence to feel like a personal insult.
I knew, rationally, that thousands of women probably made profiles and sat waiting.
I knew the men on the app, the ‘members,’ were selecting from photographs and tone and whatever hidden biometric monstrosity Selecta no doubt used to sort women by willingness to kneel.
None of that stopped the sting. The app had managed, within a day, to reduce me to waiting to be chosen by men I claimed to despise.
Back in my apartment that evening, I threw my bag onto the chair, kicked off my shoes, and opened the app before I even took off my coat.
Still nothing.
I put the phone down hard on the kitchen counter and made pasta I barely tasted. Halfway through eating it, the phone chimed.
My pulse jumped stupidly. I wiped my fingers and grabbed it.
Not a message from a sponsor, but from the app itself.
Our system has noticed low sponsor engagement with your current profile.
Associates who include additional photos and more detailed preference information receive significantly higher response rates.
Consider adding tasteful intimate images and expanding your profile to reflect how you please, respond to guidance, and accept correction.
There was even a neat little button beneath it.
Improve Profile Now
I laughed, once, without humor.
Then I kept staring at it.
Tasteful intimate images.
Respond to guidance.
Accept correction.
The language’s polish made it even more embarrassing.
I knew what it meant, of course. More revealing photos.
More explicit submission. Less pretending I was there for a dignified arrangement between equals.
The app was telling me, in corporate euphemism, that if I wanted a man to pay attention to me, I needed to show more skin and sound more obedient.
I should have been offended enough to close it. Instead I felt heat gather low in my belly.
I set the phone down and walked, a little aimlessly, to the sink and back, as if movement might scramble the response out of me.
It didn’t. I could feel the memory of Gowry’s hands…
his belt… his cock… in my body as clearly as if my nerves had kept a copy: the command, the shame, the obscene thrill of being seen through and handled accordingly.
And now this app, with its little prompts and metrics and suggestions, was prodding the same place with its cool fingers.
No one was making me do anything. That became, perversely, the permission.
I tapped Improve Profile Now.
A new screen opened, giving an analysis of my existing profile.
Face photo acceptable. Full-length photo modest. Intimate imagery absent. Written profile suggests reserve. Sponsors seeking structured arrangements respond best to authenticity and warmth.
Authenticity and warmth. Jesus.
The app offered examples.
I enjoy making a man’s life easier and more pleasurable.
I can be shy at first, but I blossom under confident direction.
I respond best to firm, consistent guidance and believe honesty matters, especially when correction is needed.
I read those with my mouth slightly open, equal parts appalled and fascinated.
They were awful. They were also effective, I had no doubt.
Men on this app did not want a white paper on my competencies.
They wanted compliance, perhaps with a hint of spirit.
Something they could frame as consent and then spend money shaping.
I clicked the photo section first because somehow that seemed less compromising than words, though I also knew that the thought was absurd.
The app prompted me to add either lingerie or implied nude images and informed me, helpfully, that hidden-face intimate photos were common among new associates. That made it easier, not morally but practically.
I stood in my bedroom for a long time with the phone in my hand.
Then I opened my dresser, pulled out my nicest bra and panties, and put them on.
The bra was ivory and more delicate than anything I wore for ordinary life, bought on a sale months earlier because it had made me feel elegant in the fitting room and I had had a coffee date that had ended up going nowhere.
The panties matched and rode lower on my hips than I usually preferred.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw exactly what the app wanted me to see: long red hair, pale skin, blue eyes too bright because my face was flushed, breasts cupped prettily, hips slimmer than curvier girls’ but not childish.
A young woman expensive men might want to undress further.
My nipples tightened while I looked at myself, which made me furious.
I took a face-hidden shot first, angled from throat to thighs. Deleted it. Took another with my hair falling forward enough to obscure part of me while still revealing enough. The app liked that one well enough to put a green ring around it and suggest Add one more.
I should have stopped there.
Instead I sat on the edge of the bed and took a picture of my legs parted just enough to show the line of my panties and the way my pubic hair turned the soft triangle of lace slightly red between them.
Not really explicit explicit. Suggestive.
Tastelessly effective, probably. My hand shook when I uploaded it.
The app approved it in seconds.
Engagement likelihood increased 47%.
I nearly threw the phone at the wall.
Instead I opened the text section.
My old profile sat there looking prim and defensive.
Former legislative staffer seeking a discreet, mutually beneficial arrangement. Intelligent, polished, well-read, and adaptable. I value clarity, respect, and generosity.
It sounded like a hostage note because it was one. No wonder no one had bothered.
I deleted mutually beneficial first. The phrase suddenly seemed laughable. Then I rewrote the rest in short, careful bursts, pausing after each sentence and thinking about it as if I were making an affidavit I might later regret.
Intelligent, feminine, and discreet. New to arrangements but not to pleasing demanding men.
I value generosity, clarity, and strong leadership.
I can be shy at first, but I respond deeply to confidence, consistency, and a firm hand.
Looking for a sponsor who appreciates honesty, polish, and a woman who wants to learn.
I stared at a firm hand for a full thirty seconds.
Then I left it there.
The app suggested additional tags. I selected discreet, responsive, exclusive preferred. I hovered over enjoys discipline, withdrew my thumb, then selected open to correction instead, which was somehow more humiliating because it was truer to my own evasions.
When I hit save, the app rewarded me with a little visual flourish of a bouquet, and another alert.
Your profile is now optimized for high-value sponsors.
The phrase made me blush all over again. High-value sponsors, as if I were a product being moved to a more expensive shelf.
I tossed my phone onto the comforter and sat very still.
My body felt over-aware of itself. Of the lace against my skin.
Of the cool air in the room touching the tops of my breasts where the bra did not cover.
Of the ache between my legs I had been trying not to name all evening.
It was impossible, after the photographs and the words, not to feel as though I had enacted something already.
Submission by increments. I had responded to instruction.
I had displayed myself. I had softened my language into the shape men on that app liked.
No one had ordered it. Which somehow made it more intimate and more damning.
I lay back on the bed and shut my eyes.
My phone buzzed again almost immediately, and I snatched it up with a desperate speed that embarrassed me even in private.
Another app notification:
Profile refresh complete. Increased visibility active for the next 12 hours.
Still no man. Just the system, noticing and rewarding and nudging me onward like a trainer with a clicker.
But I opened the browse tab anyway.
Porter B. appeared near the top now, whether by algorithm or fate or because I had spent too much time on his profile before, I didn’t know.
His photograph looked the same: jaw, mouth, gray at the temple, control in every line of him.
His profile’s text opened with the same concise certainty that made the others seem sloppy.
I read it again more slowly than before, in my lingerie on my bed with my own newly softened profile live on the same system that hosted him. That changed the words. Or maybe it changed me. I no longer read them as a spectator peering at some other kind of woman. I read them as a candidate.
I am generous with a woman who pleases me and consistent with one who requires correction.
My hand drifted between my thighs of its own accord.