Laura found herself at a lecture with Cathy. As usual there was no prior notification as to what the subject would be. When that same older teacher came into the classroom, the one who had been so stern at the mirrors, Laura unconsciously sat up straighter. She knew from experience that whoever this woman was, she didn't miss anything.

"My name is Marie, and I will be your teacher today. This afternoon we are going to talk about masters, and about Mr. Vader and Mr. Wimpy. Remember those old cartoons, with the imp on one of the character's shoulders and the angel on the other? Always a struggle between wild abandon and conscience. Your master has one of those on each shoulder. To the left sits Mister Vader, a little devil in a big black helmet constantly prodding him with the light saber, whispering in his ear, telling him to come to the Dark Side. Mr. Vader is your friend, for he's the one that tells your master it's okay, make her do what you want, keep her in line, grab her whenever you feel like it, don't pay any attention to what society says is right or wrong.

"We all want a strong master. Not so much in the physical sense but strong in how he acts, in that indefinable something he projects. I've been doing this," she reached up to point to her collar, "longer than some of you have been alive. I still get a shiver when my master looks at me, eye to eye, and orders me to follow some new rule he just dreamed up. That's Mr. Vader at work inside his head.

"Mister Wimpy is not on your side. He sits on master's other shoulder, telling him to hold back, think about what he's doing, don't be so harsh, show some consideration, remember he has responsibilities, what will people say if they find out what he's doing. We need Mr. Wimpy to keep Mr. Vader in check, but if Mr. Wimpy ever gets the upper hand you have lost your master. He'll turn into one of those shy, sensitive, New Age kind of guys who talks about sharing and getting in touch with his inner self. He wouldn't dare think about telling you what to do, that might intrude on your personal space. You like those times master gets rough, maybe he throws you down on the bed, rips off your clothes, ties you down, and makes you moan all night long? Well, with Mr. Wimpy in charge he might dare to touch you gently on the arm and ask if you would like to indulge in some quality time together. Any questions or comments?" Marie stopped and faced the class, waiting for a response.

One woman in the back raised her hand. Laura recognized her, and remembered her name was Elise. She had a slight European accent. "If my master ever heard me say anything about a personal space he'd smack my bottom till I couldn't sit down, then put me in a cage all day long and tell me that's as much personal space as I get." They all laughed, with some nodding in agreement that the same might well happen to them.

In the past Laura had felt a little guilty at how much she enjoyed Frank's aggressive bedroom style, especially the ways he would surprise her with something new and unexpected. In the few weeks she had been at the school, talking with Cathy and the others, she learned that what she considered an exotic sexual fantasy many of the other women took for granted as everyday life. Even Elise, the one who had just spoken, had one evening casually described how her master calmly ordered her to strip and then chained her ankle to their bed every night, and how she couldn't fall asleep as quickly now because she missed the reminder tugging at her leg. Laura wasn't sure if she could handle that, but had to admit where once she would have been shocked, now her first reaction was curiosity, what it would be like, and if Frank would enjoy it.

Laura turned back to face Marie as the teacher continued with her speech. "This may surprise you, but we control our masters." There were some indignant mutters but no one spoke up. Laura looked to Cathy, puzzled as to what seemed to be a contradiction. Marie elaborated. "No, not in the sense that we can tell them what to do. What we control is the balance between Mr. Vader and Mr. Wimpy. It may not even be a conscious effort, but you do change him to suit your needs."

Marie held up a hand to stop what was becoming a groundswell of protest. "Wait! I know you all have an ideal image, where he reigns supreme and you are the lowly powerless servant devoid of even the faintest bit of influence. It's a nice picture, but you will do better to look at what really goes on inside his head. There is this horrible tangled web of conflicting emotions: his need to dominate you mixed in with more than a little lust; his need to control his environment, and you are part of it, stemming from a fear of losing everything he has; his instinct to keep you safe from harm but doing whatever it takes, even taking advantage of his greater physical strength, to force you to yield to his will. It sounds like a mess, and one I'd never be able to sort out, but we don't have to worry about all that. In some way we will never be able to understand, he figures out how to make it all work together.

"Our job is to give him some feedback. If we need more of Mr. Vader, we nudge his dominance thermostat up a bit. If he's turning into some kind of self-centered male offspring of a dog, we move the thermostat down toward Mr. Wimpy. Of course that's easier said than done. What can we do to encourage Mr. Vader?" She looked over the class, then pointed a finger at Laura. "You, what do you do to bring out your master's dark side? Tell me your name too."

Caught by surprise, Laura didn't answer immediately. She had to think fast, for no one was allowed to pass on answering a teacher's question. "I'm Laura. I never thought about it before," she said, stalling for time. "I think I encourage him by doing things he likes."

"Exactly!" The teacher interrupted, letting Laura relax. "You show him it's okay to be assertive, that it's what you need too. You submit to him, in simple terms. He starts out with something simple, sees that you don't have a problem, and goes a little further. Laura, describe something you did for him, some way you had to change just because he wanted it. How did you nudge Mr. Vader?"

On the spot again, but Laura had an answer to this question. "Not long after my husband Frank and I first met, when we were dating, I sensed a sort of appreciation or annoyance whenever we would get together. I wasn't sure if it was something about me, or something I had said or done, that didn't quite suit him on one day, but did the very next day. Then one particular evening over dinner he started talking about himself, and about the kinds of movies he liked to watch, in particular the old classics from the 1930s. In an offhand way he mentioned that he really liked the costumes the actresses wore. Not just those glamorous evening gowns, but the everyday styles popular back then. The way he explained it, a woman should strive to look as different from a man as possible, and in his mind he associated that with women who wore a skirt.

"Our next date, I wore a nice long skirt that could have come right out of one of those movies. His approval was obvious in the way his eyes lit up. Next time it was a modern style pantsuit, something that would fit in the office. I saw just the barest flash of a frown cross his face. But even more, his whole personality seemed to hold back. Frank was still very nice, but I could feel he was just a little on the distant side.

"I didn't think that much about it, but I found myself dressing to his taste more than mine. I think it was bringing out his Mr. Vader because he became more dominating towards me. To this day Frank has never actually ordered me to wear only skirts, but that's all I have in the closet now. When I go shopping I don't even look at anything else."

The teacher nodded in approval as Laura ended her story. "An excellent example Laura. It illustrates how you adapted to what he likes, in a way that brought out what you saw as the best points of his own personality. You definitely lured your Frank to the Dark Side."

Laura looked down in embarrassment but had to smile at Marie's observation. Cathy and several of the other women turned to Laura with what she took to be a look of surprise mixed with some new-found respect. That meant something to Laura, for since the first day in the school she had been treated as something of the neophyte, with little to contribute due to her lack of experience.

"And what about Mr. Wimpy?" Marie asked the class. "This is a tough one to handle, especially for us. It's just as easy to sprout wings and fly off into the sunset as to stand up to him and tell him to cool it. How do we get our masters to come back to the real world when they're on one of those macho power trips? Anyone?" She looked around for someone to answer. No one seemed to have any idea until Cathy hesitantly raised her hand.

"Cathy isn't it? Let's hear what you think."

In a quiet voice Cathy explained in one short sentence, "I tell him when I'm worried or scared."

Marie smiled knowingly, "and why does that work?"

Cathy answered. "He has this tremendous capacity for responsibility, a need to take care of me. One moment he can send me to a corner for an hours long timeout, for the most trivial infraction of some minor and silly rule. And then the next day I casually mention something that concerns me and suddenly he's sitting down in front of me with this look of total concern, asking me all about it and planning what we should do about it.

"There was an incident a few months ago. Robert had been working a lot of overtime. That and work related stress were causing some problems for him. He was irritable and, hmm, let's call it overly diligent in overseeing me. Late one evening I told him I was worried, that his health was suffering and I was scared he might wind up in the hospital. I did not tell him that I felt he was being especially critical of me for the same reasons, but he saw the connection. He wasn't able to stop the work problems immediately, but he did slow down, get more sleep, eat better, and backed off on the discipline. I did better, and I was able to approach him about some things I thought I could do to help him. Fix him a good lunch, pick out healthier snacks for those times he was at the office late, and when he was home make sure he relaxed and got plenty of rest.

"The crisis at work passed and we got back to normal. He never stopped being my master, and if anything is more strict now than ever before. I have noticed that he adjusts more to my moods though. Not that I can get away with much on bad days."

The teacher started walking back and forth in from of the class. "Cathy makes a good point here, and one worth repeating. Masters are not monsters, all Mr. Vader and no Mr. Wimpy. They do care about us, no matter how they choose to show it. In Cathy's story, her master needed an elbow in the side to realize he had to get back on track. That's our job, to make sure he knows if we are happy and content, if we need more attention, or if we need him to ease off for a little while.

"Don't mistake it for trying to manipulate him. It's nothing more than communicating to him how well he's doing. We don't tell him how to adjust or what to do or not do, we just indicate in a respectful, subtle, submissive way that a bit of a change might be nice. He figures out the rest. Cathy did nothing more than point out something he would have seen himself if the situation had been better. And Laura, she made changes in herself to bring out what we all like to think are a master's best qualities."