Had this introduction and outline ready for years. Another thrash with the AI co-writer turned it into a story. This one has no sex in it.
“It’s just sex, really— there’s not really much to get people so wound up— except that they like to get wound up. And, frankly, I’m in a position where I could care less. Luckily for me.”
“Well, you say it’s just about sex— but really, there’s more to it than that, isn’t there; be honest— there is power in there too— and that’s what gets people upset, surely— the mixture of sex and power?”
“Are you trying to tell me that sex and power aren’t mixed up everywhere you look? I mean, don’t get me wrong— young love can happen, and of course, some people have very equitable sexual relationships; nothing wrong with any of that, if you like it that way, and props to anyone who can make it last, too— but if you are trying to insinuate that I am unusual in mixing the two up, I’m calling you on that, and you’ll lose if you try to argue.”
“That’s not a position I’m going to try to argue on— of course, we all understand that sex and power are often mixed up— and that often that’s in messy ways. It’s precisely because that’s true that society polices the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable mixtures and messes— constantly debating what is tolerable and what is intolerable in a decent culture. What disturbs your many critics is …”
“… is the way that I have clarified things— have cleaned up the mess. Made it clear, just what goes on. That’s what people don’t like— that I make it hard for them to hide from themselves just how messed up their so-called ‘culture’ is. That I make them feel like hypocrites. Frankly, that’s their problem, not mine. And again, I’m lucky enough that they don’t seem to be able to make it my problem, despite years of trying.”
“You’re referring to your ability to keep expensive lawyers on call to bat away lawsuits, tie up cases for years, sponsor legislation which appears to be about clarifying contract law, but which in fact makes your practices harder to argue against. But that’s just it; your immense power— deriving from your immense wealth— is enabling you to control these young women’s sexuality in— in ways which can only be described as extreme …”
“Once again, what are court cases, what is legislation, if not clarification? We have an adversarial legal system— not my invention— possibly not even my preference, although we’re not discussing that today— but it’s a legal system I accept, and that I abide by in all my dealings. Taking test cases to law— as you well know, Ms Tenison— is considered a positive act in our system of common law; getting independent judges to hear all the arguments— my opponents are well-funded, too, you must accept— about particular applications of general law, in order to establish a precedent. It’s how it works. In my view, it’s the people who don’t like the fact that I won— won my original case, and have won all twelve cases that have made it to higher courts, too— that you should be challenging today, not me. They seem to be the ones who don’t accept our culture.”
“And if you really want to go to the money equals power argument, then I have to seriously ask what you are doing here. I am not a Wall Street financier. I am not a banker. I am not a revolving door bureaucrat / academic / regulator operator. I did not go to a fancy university. I was born an average citizen, without special advantage, into a system that people like those had built, was educated— told— that such a system was for the best, and found how to make my way within it— using what talents, skill, willpower and energy I had. As it happens, that has resulted in my being able to command large numbers of dollars. If you don’t like that system, please, I beg you, ask your readers to donate to the same reformist policy institutes that I donate too, and let’s see if we can change things.”
His voice is calm, friendly, relaxed, but the journalist is clearly reeling, just a little; despite her experience and reputation, sparring with this man seems to be unsettling her— her cheeks are coloring, and she is making rather too much of flicking through her notes, buying time to calm herself down, perhaps.
We were watching this recording in the conference room of the law firm that I worked for— one of the several expensive law firms the journalist, Ms Tenison, was referring to — as reference before our review of the published article. When I say ‘we’, I should make it clear that I was probably going to have nothing to say to anyone about anything. I was only in the room because I was a junior attorney on the high-powered team which looked after Peter Strachey’s account. At 24, I was exceptionally lucky to be working at such a level, but at this level, all that made me was the gofer, sitting at the back, not actually at the table, but behind my boss, who had worked the Strachey account for a few years, and who was, as far as any of us could tell, actually a robot.
Every single published piece about Strachey that we could discover was reviewed by the team— most of it by AI bots (tens of thousands of mentions of him a day on social media), but this piece— for a high-profile New York establishment magazine site— was getting very careful review indeed. Mr Strachey has never sued for libel, or for defamation, and does not demand approval of pieces by serious journalists, but this is at least in part because such publishers, such journalists are fully aware that teams like ours (I was aware of a parallel team doing exactly the same work at another high profile firm in the US, and later discovered there were others in Europe; he likes, and can afford, multiple views on the same thing) are always looking, reading every word, reviewing interview tapes and transcripts, phone calls, negotiation chat logs— everything— and that each day and each week there are case approaches set out for anything even on the fringes of actionability, the more serious of which are shared with said publishers and journalists.
Corrections, retractions, apologies, republished amended pieces are often the result.
Mr Strachey was not involved in any of this. It was our work. He just paid for it. We were not in fact protecting his reputation. We had one single purpose, mandated by him, paid for by his immense resources, and that was to do all we can to maintain the viability of a single contractual term.
The full-service term— as it has become known. This is what all the fuss is about.
And it’s very simple. An actor in a porn film contracts to participate in sexual activity in the context of the making of a film— they have specifically signed up for it; their consent is implicit. These contracts work— in essence they are indistinguishable from the contracts Hollywood actors sign. The actors have read the script, or whatever else is provided in terms of descriptive material as to what is required of them, they’ve signed the contract; if they do what they agreed to do, they get paid, if not, then not— any disputes end up in due process, however that pans out. Note that no power exists to force them to comply with the agreement they have made— to participate in any particular activity. The contract simply provides for what happens in the event that they do not comply— which is, essentially, that they don’t get paid. It’s as simple as that.
What Strachey did was write a contract for a girl he wished to have sex with that made similar provisions, but lasted a year. The girl was paid a large amount of the money— two thirds of the total, amounting to half a million dollars— up-front.
When the year was up, and after she had been paid in full, the girl went to the papers (no there was no NDA— when I say Strachey wrote the contract, that’s what I mean— he didn’t use a lawyer; he wrote it himself; the whole legal profession is in a mixture of denial, despair and rage about this— that the most celebrated legal knot of the decade was tied— and very effectively tied, too, by a non-lawyer— it drives us crazy). Then some fancy lawyer convinced the girl that she had a case— all sorts of cases, in fact— to sue Strachey, and also that she should attempt to have him arraigned on criminal charges (everything from rape on down, through kidnapping, assault, cruelty— you name it), and the whole thing blew up.
In court, the details that the girl described seemed certain to destroy Strachey— the court of public opinion was all for lynching him.
And then, it got worse. On the direction of Strachey, his lawyers did what they had expressly advised him not to— they showed clips from the regular video interviews he had arranged for various people to hold with the girl— on an almost daily basis across the whole year, asking her to describe what she had been doing— what he had been doing with her— since the previous tape, and asking her if everything was consensual, if she intended to consent to whatever came next, or whether she wanted to leave. These videos, the lawyers thought, would nail Strachey’s coffin shut, so full they were of specific and shocking detail as to what he had put her through.
But as it happened, it was the public’s opinion of the girl that was changed. It was so clear that she was willing, that she was not only thinking about the money, but finding distinct sexual reactions to him— to what he was doing. Positive reactions.
Strachey’s full-service contract term was incredibly robust, since it was so simple and direct, and since it was clear that nothing which had been done to the girl (even though the list of what had not been done to her was rather short) had been outside the contract, and that she had at all times been free not to participate.
My name was Chloe— what I now am belongs to Peter Strachey. I’m his slave; he owns me. Utterly and totally. I have no name.
But that’s not what the law says. It recognises me as being in year three of a contract, originally made for six months, with an option— non-negotiable by me within the terms of the contract to extend. And he has continually extended it.
And I? I have not refused to honour the contract. Not broken it.
Not because it’s a contract (even though I was a contract lawyer), but because I’m his slave. Because he owns me, body and soul. And it was never about the money— even though it is apparently still there in a Swiss account, earning interest.
But it took a while…
Here is my story— told about someone else; because it was someone else, it was Chloe, and I no longer have a name. Of course, this isn’t exactly what happened. but it’s the way his AI has written it, after asking me endless questions.
He has me read it out loud, my hands as always folded together between my shoulders, in the reverse-prayer style that cost me so much pain to achieve, my pussy on the cute little wooden wedge he has in his evening room, watches me writhe, watches me cry, patiently waits when I am overwhelmed, watches me get excited, helplessly so— until he pushes me forward to do my ass, hurting me, honouring me, destroying me, making me real, watching myself get fucked in the big mirror, watching my tits bounce, watching myself be dissolved by him, again; less and less of me left each time, drowned in gratitude, willing him on, entirely his.
“The appellate ruling came in yesterday,” Chloe said, placing the file on the edge of his desk. She didn’t sit— hadn’t been invited to. “They upheld the injunction. You can’t enforce arbitration anymore.”
Strachey barely glanced up from his screen. His fingers moved steadily over the keyboard, never pausing. “That’s fine,” he said.
Chloe exhaled through her nose. The air in his office was thick, warm after the walk through the cold February streets. Behind her, his assistant— tall, mo older than 21m unnervingly poised, wearing a skirt that clung just a little too deliberately, was definitely too short to be profesional, but was undeniably to die for— typed something at her own terminal, the click of her nails against the keys precise, practiced. Chloe had seen her before, in passing. Knew what she was. Contractually obliged to be here, to answer phones, to cross her legs just so. To open her blouse, go to her knees and take a visitor’s cock, anyway he liked it— if Strachey wanted her to. Disgusting.
And yet Chloe’s eyes flicked back to her. The girl’s collarbone was sharp under the thin fabric of her blouse. Her lips were parted slightly. She wasn’t looking at Chloe, wasn’t looking at Strachey— just straight ahead, like none of this mattered. Like the fact that she was legally bound to sit there, to exist in this space as decoration, was nothing.
Chloe swallowed. Her tongue felt too heavy.
Strachey finally swiveled his chair toward her. The movement was unhurried. “You’re sweating,” he observed.
She was. Her blazer stuck to the small of her back. “It’s hot in here,” she said.
He smiled— not unkindly, just amused. “You drafted the response to the Brighton Senate hearing, didn’t you?”
She nodded.
“Good work.” He leaned back. “You should stay. We’ll go over the next steps.”
Chloe’s pulse jumped. She glanced at the assistant again. The girl hadn’t moved.
Strachey followed her gaze. “She doesn’t care,” he said.
Chloe’s mouth went dry. “I know.”
The assistant’s fingers stilled on the keys.
And then, softly, deliberately, she turned her head— just enough to meet Chloe’s eyes.
Chloe couldn’t look away.
The assistant’s gaze was steady. Not mocking, not even curious— just there, as if she’d been waiting for this moment, as if she already knew the next ten steps of this dance and was merely letting Chloe catch up. The air between them hummed with something Chloe couldn’t name. Her fingers twitched at her sides.
Strachey cleared his throat. “The case,” he said, as if reminding her why she’d come. As if the file on his desk mattered at all now. Chloe blinked, dragged her attention back to him. His expression was impassive, but there was a flicker in his eyes— something darkly knowing. He’d seen her staring. He had seen her; she felt it, and quaked.
“The injunction doesn’t change anything,” he continued, leaning forward slightly. His voice was calm, almost bored. “We anticipated this. The contracts are still enforceable. Just slower.” Chloe nodded mechanically, her mind scrambling to reassemble the legal arguments she’d rehearsed in the elevator. But the assistant’s presence was a physical weight against her thoughts. That blouse. The way her skirt hitched up just a fraction when she shifted in her chair. The way she didn’t seem to care that Chloe was looking—
“You’re distracted,” Strachey observed. Not a question.
Chloe’s cheeks burned. “No. I— " She stopped. Lied. She was lying, and they both knew it. The assistant’s lips curved, just slightly. Not a smile. Something worse. Recognition.
Strachey stood. He didn’t move toward Chloe— just rounded his desk, stopping beside the assistant’s chair. His hand settled on the girl’s shoulder, fingers brushing the exposed skin of her collarbone. The girl didn’t react. Didn’t flinch. Just let him touch her, as if it were nothing. As if it were normal.
Chloe’s breath hitched.
“You’ve never been alone with me before,” Strachey mused, his thumb tracing idle circles on the receptionist’s shoulder. “But you’ve read the contracts. You know how this works.” His gaze pinned Chloe in place. “Don’t you?”
The assistant’s fingers hovered over the keyboard again. Waiting. Watching. Chloe’s pulse roared in her ears. She should leave. Should run.
Why do I feel like this?
Instead, she wet her lips. “Yes,” she whispered.
Strachey’s fingers paused on the assistant’s skin. For a moment, Chloe thought he might laugh— might dismiss her outright. But his expression didn’t change.
“Go,” he said, his voice low. “Go, now. Tell Alan you need to be reassigned. Our screening process clearly failed.” His thumb pressed harder against the girl’s collarbone— not cruelly, just decisively. “I don’t compromise my team.”
Chloe’s stomach twisted. The assistant exhaled softly, her lashes fluttering. It wasn’t pain— it was anticipation. Chloe knew, suddenly, that the girl was waiting for Strachey to push her chair back, to slide his hand lower. To make her prove what she was. That she actually wanted it.
And Chloe was standing there. Watching. Wanting.
The realization burned through her like a live wire. Strachey saw it— of course he did. His lips curved.
Then he simply ceased to be interested, it seemed; “You should tell Alan I want you on my corporate team— you’re smart and creative. But not on indenture work. Thank you for coming over.”
A cool and decisive dismissal.
Chloe walked out with her heels clicking too sharply against the marble, her throat tight. The elevator ride down was worse than the office— no windows, no distraction, just the memory of the assistant’s collarbone under Strachey’s fingers, the way she hadn’t even flinched. The way Chloe hadn’t looked away.
Weeks passed. The corporate team was drier, safer. No indenture contracts to parse, no walking into rooms where women sat with their legs crossed just so, their contracts humming under their skin. But she dreamed about it— woke at 3 a.m. with her sheets tangled, her mouth dry. The imagined weight of a contract in her hands, the ink still wet. Her own signature at the bottom.
When the email came— Strachey’s visit, 2 p.m., indenture team debrief— Chloe’s fingers froze over her keyboard. She shouldn’t care. She didn’t care. But her calendar was suddenly full of urgent tasks, all timed to spill over into that slot when he’d stride through the lobby. She scheduled a client call for 1:45. Moved a meeting to 2:15. A tightrope walk of plausible deniability— as if her pulse wasn’t rabbiting under her blazer.
The forecourt was all glass and sharp angles, sunlight cutting across the marble like a blade. Chloe lingered by the fountain, pretending to check her phone. She could’ve left. Should’ve. But then the doors slid open, and Strachey stepped out— not alone. A girl trailed him, her heels clicking in perfect sync with his. She was even younger than the assistant, her dress tighter, her lips glossed pink. She walked like sex. She didn’t look at Chloe. Didn’t look at anyone. Strachey’s hand settled at the small of her back, guiding her toward a waiting car. Routine. Effortless.
Chloe’s stomach lurched. She turned sharply— too sharply— and her elbow knocked into a man walking past. His briefcase hit the ground with a thud. “Fuck,” he muttered, bending to retrieve it. Chloe stammered an apology, but the man was already gone, hurrying on his mission.
When she looked back, Strachey was watching her. Not the girl, not the car— her. His expression was unreadable. The girl waited beside the open door, her fingers curled around the frame. Strachey said something to her— low, dismissive— and she slid inside without a word.
Then he started toward Chloe. No hesitation. No pretense. People moved out of his way as if they sensed it too: the inevitability of this collision. Chloe’s breath caught. She could still run. Could still pretend this was an accident.
But she didn’t. And when Strachey stopped in front of her, close enough that she could smell his cologne— dark, expensive— all she said was, “You won.”
His smile was small, casual, amused. “I always do.”
Chloe’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. The wind took the fountain’s spray and misted the side of her face, but she couldn’t blink it away, couldn’t move at all. Strachey’s gaze held hers— interested, sympathetic, but also cruel.
He was enjoying her discomfort, she realised, feeling her pulse fluttering visibly at her throat. His thumb brushed an imaginary speck from her shoulder, the touch delightful to her, stupidly delightful.
“You’ll need to leave this firm,” he said, so casually it took her a second to process the words. “If you ever want to be considered for service to me.” A pause, just long enough for her stomach to drop. “Can’t have any slightest whisper of undue influence. You know why.”
She did. The contracts were ironclad because they were pristine— no blurred lines; any other ties could later be twisted into coercion claims. Her breath hitched. Strachey tilted his head, studying her reaction like a biologist observing a pinned specimen. “I’ll be watching,” he added, softer now. “This conversation never happened.”
The car door clicked shut behind him, the sedan pulled away, leaving Chloe standing there, hollowed out. The girl inside didn’t glance back through the tinted windows. Of course not. Why would she? She had already won the lottery— Strachey’s attention, his contract, the weight of his expectations pressing her into something sleek and obedient. Chloe’s fingers curled into her palms, nails biting crescents into flesh.
Back at her desk, she stared blankly at her monitor. The screen reflected the indenture team’s bullpen across the hall— all glass walls and murmured conversations, a fishbowl of people who understood the contracts better than they understood themselves. One of the junior associates laughed too loudly, his tie loosened. Chloe wondered if he’d signed something too, or if he was just drunk on proximity to power. She opened her resignation template, fingers hovering over the keys.
Her phone buzzed. An unknown number. The preview text made her throat tighten: First lesson. You don’t get to keep anything. Not even your name. She deleted it immediately, her pulse jackhammering. But she knew— he’d already won. The contract wasn’t even signed yet, and she was already his.
She rebelled against him. Against herself. Against insanity.
Eight months later, Stockholm’s late summer light cut through her apartment windows like shards of glass. The job at the Ministry of Justice had been surprisingly easy to secure— her expertise on the Strachey contracts made her a valued hire. The Swedes were drafting what they called “The Prohibition,” a law designed to gut any loophole that might allow indenture contracts to take root. Chloe sat through meetings where bureaucocrats spat Strachey’s name like a curse, their Swedish vowels flattening with disgust. She nodded along, her nails digging into her thigh under the table.
Her dreams were astonishing. Not the lurid flashes of Strachey’s hands, his girls, the contract she’d burned unread— no, those were predictable. It was the other dreams: herself at sixty, gray-haired and serene, lecturing at Cambridge about the dangers of asymmetrical power. I outgrew it, she told her students, their faces rapt. The lie was so vivid she could taste it— the dry chalk of the lecture hall, the weight of her wedding ring. She woke gasping, her sheets damp with sweat.
She doubled down. Joined a climbing gym where the ropes burned her palms raw. Dated a kind-eyed economist who brought her lavender honey from his hives.
They were talking about moving in together— his apartment, hers, it didn’t matter— when the notification flashed across her phone screen. Strachey to Hold AMA in Stockholm. Her thumb hovered. The economist kissed her temple, oblivious, his fingers tracing the ridge of her spine through her sweater. “You’re tense,” he murmured. Chloe swallowed, clicking the link. Three accompanying photos loaded: girls she didn’t recognize, their lips parted slightly, as if caught mid-breath. The caption: Full Transparency. No Questions Off-Limits.
Her promotion at the Ministry had been swift. Junior advisors didn’t typically get private offices with views of the water, but she was good— and her insight into Strachey, into the culture he came from, how that had shaped the space he had inserted the contract into— of course the Swedes made porn films too, the actors on contract… She was valued. Now her boss leaned in her doorway, tapping the invitation printout against his thigh. “You’re our Strachey expert. We need eyes on this.” His brow furrowed when she hesitated. “Unless you’d rather not?”
Chloe’s laugh came out too sharp. “Of course I’ll go.” The lie of her enthusiasm tasted like metal. She’d spent months meticulously avoiding Strachey’s European apearances, rerouting conference trips when his name appeared on attendee lists. But this— this was unavoidable. The press conference was at the Grand HĂ´tel, a five-minute walk from her office.
The morning of the event, she found herself intensely concerned to choose her dress well. A high-collared blouse. A skirt that didn’t cling. As if armor could be stitched into seams. The economist kissed her goodbye, his fingers kind but clumsy as he tried to help her with her coat. “Dinner tonight?” She nodded, already wondering how many glasses of wine it would take to scrub the day from her skin.
The ballroom was packed. Chloe lingered near the back, her Ministry badge tucked away. Strachey entered from a side door, flanked by the three girls— no, women, she corrected herself. They moved with a precision that suggested rehearsal, their heels sinking soundlessly into the carpet. Strachey didn’t glance at the crowd. He didn’t need to. The room hushed anyway.
The first question came from a journalist Chloe recognized— a ferret-faced man who’d written scathing editorials about indenture contracts. “How do you respond to allegations that these arrangements are inherently coercive?”
Strachey smiled. Without turning, he said, “Lena?”
The girl on his right— blonde, her posture unnervingly erect, her blouse almost open-fronted, her skirt short and frilly, but her tone professional and clear— stepped forward. “I’ve read those allegations,” she said, her Swedish accent crisp. “They assume I lack agency. Or that money cancels consent.” Her fingers flexed once at her sides. “I signed because I wanted to. Every day, I choose to stay.” She looked directly at the journalist, smiling, deliberately submissive, her voice Marilyn Monroe throaty; “Does that frighten you?”
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Chloe’s throat constricted. She knew this script— had parsed every clause that made it possible. But hearing it aloud, watching the girl’s pupils dilate as she spoke—
Strachey’s gaze swept the room then. Not searching. Counting. When his eyes landed on Chloe, he didn’t react. Just held her there, pinned, for one endless second. Then he turned, murmuring something to the brunette beside him. The girl laughed softly, her hand brushing his sleeve.
She gently took centre stage from the blonde; “The overwhelming question on the public forums seem to about whether he whips us. So I’d like to answer that. Of course, he does, sillies. What he doesn’t do is beat his wife, or come on to women in bars, or pressurise women on Tinder.”
Her fingers toyed with the hem of her skirt— a calculated gesture, demure and yet somehow brazen in its precision. “But the whipping— it’s written into the contract. Each of us initialled that section.” The crowd shifted, a collective intake of breath. The brunette smiled, tilting her head.
“No-one signs up without this in her mind. Each of us, in our different ways, was in some way interested in the idea of submission. And that means saying yes to things you wouldn’t choose for yourself. You might not believe me,but, although I truly hate being whipped— dread it and do everything I can— within the contract— " she turns and smiles, almost shy, at Strachey, " to avoid it… But I’m here to tell you that I like what it has done to me, how it has changed me, made me a better person. Honestly. Changed how I like to be fucked, too.”
The journalist blinked. A gasp went round the room. The brunette’s candor was surgical, her willingness to reveal her own contradictions more disorienting than any scripted defense. “But— doesn’t the money influence you? A million dollars could make anyone say anything.”
“Of course, the money is why I signed. I was a florist before; signing made me a whore, no getting round it. But then, why not whore in the best conditions, in circumstances where I will be brought— required— to deliver to the highest standards?”
The brunette’s voice was matter-of-fact, her fingers looping a strand of hair behind her ear. The journalist flinched at the word whore, but the brunette continued, unfazed. “It’s like ballet— you don’t become a principal dancer for love alone. You do it because you’re paid to push your body beyond what you’d endure voluntarily.” She tilted her head, considering. “Except here, the subjugation is the point. And the money…” A slow smile. “Well, the money proves he values my suffering.”
Chloe’s nails bit into her palms. The girl’s logic was flawless, her self-awareness weaponized. Every answer stripped another layer of plausible outrage from the room. A woman near the front raised her hand. “But— doesn’t it bother you? That he owns you?”
The brunette laughed— a bright, startled sound. “Owns? No. He leases. Big difference.” She tapped her temple. “I still think my own thoughts. Even when they’re about how much I want to please him.” Her gaze flicked to Strachey, just for a second. “That’s the contract’s magic. It doesn’t erase your will— it sharpens it.”
Chloe’s breath caught. The girl’s words skated too close to her own midnight thoughts, the way Strachey’s gaze had dissected her in the forecourt. The economist’s gentle kindness was revealed as naive— sweet, clumsy, unaware. She was still running away.
Strachey hadn’t moved. His stillness was a counterpoint to the girl’s animation, his silence, his relaxed demeanour more potent than any rebuttal. The journalist scowled. “You’re telling us you like being degraded?”
“Not at first.” The brunette adjusted the strap of her dress where it had slipped. “But degradation is just intimacy turned inside out. He doesn’t humiliate me because he despises me— he does it because he knows me. Better than my therapist ever did.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Have you ever been truly seen? It’s terrifying. And addictive.”
The brunette straightened, her smile fading into something softer. “Look, I get why this scares you. But the contract’s genius is its honesty. It says: Here’s what I want from you. Here’s what you’ll get in return. No lies, no false promises.” She shrugged. “Isn’t that rarer than love?”
Silence pooled in the ballroom. Even the journalist hesitated, his pen hovering over his notepad. Then Strachey stirred, his first movement since the questioning began. He didn’t speak— just extended his hand toward the brunette. She took it without looking, her fingers slotting into his as naturally as a key turning in a lock.
The redhead sidled forward at that point, blushing, pale of skin, evidently nervous; she looked back at Strachey, who smiled at her— soft, encouraging— a strange look, when you knew he had whipped her, violated her, would do it again.
It was a devastating moment for his opponents, the clip shared a gazillion times. They wanted indenture to be black and white, the participants cartoon characters— Strachey the monster, the women his victims. But the court of public opinion kept seeing it as nuanced.
The redhead found her voice, after a few false starts;
“It … it’s not easy, getting accepted by … by my … by my owner.”
There was a ripple in the audience— was this girl contradicting the other?
“That… that’s my word, not his. But … well, it works for me…"— another needy glance at him, another supportive grin, totally relaxed, natural, friendly.
“Anyway, what I want to say is that he … he doesn’t take us unless he does that— unless he can see us; that this will work for us.”
A journalist, a woman this time; “And does it— does it really— work for you?”
The redhead’s blush deepened, her fingers twisting in the hem of her skirt. For a moment, she looked like she might bolt— like she’d revealed too much already. But then her gaze flicked to Strachey again, and something in her posture shifted. Her shoulders relaxed, her chin lifting just slightly. “Yes,” she said, the word almost a sigh. “It does. It really does. I wouldn’t be with him if it didn’t. He terminates all the time— pays the compensation in full.”
Her confession hung in the air, raw and unpolished. Unlike the brunette’s poised logic or the blonde’s sly provocations, the redhead’s honesty was clumsy, vulnerable. She bit her lip, as if physically holding back more words, but they spilled out anyway. “I— I used to hate myself. Not in a dramatic way. Just… quietly. The contract didn’t fix that. But it… redirected it.” Her fingers strayed to her throat, where a thin silver chain glinted. “Now when I feel that— that itch under my skin, it has somewhere to go. A shape. A purpose.”
The journalist frowned. “So he… what? Absorbs your self-loathing?”
“No.” The redhead’s laugh was startled, breathy. “He uses it. Turns it into something else.” Her eyes darted away, then back, her voice dropping to a whisper the mic barely caught. “Something beautiful.”
The crowd stirred, a murmur of discomfort rippling through them. Chloe’s chest tightened. She recognized that look— the dizzying relief of surrender, the way the redhead’s body leaned infinitesimally toward Strachey, as if pulled by gravity.
Then the girl’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh god,” she mumbled behind her fingers. “I wasn’t supposed to say that part.”
Strachey didn’t move. Didn’t scold. But the redhead’s shoulders hunched, her earlier confidence crumbling into something frantic. “I mean— it’s not actually beautiful. It’s— it’s just effective. Like… like chemotherapy. Or— or surgery.”
The brunette snorted, rolling her eyes. “Oh, please.”
But the redhead was nodding too fast now, her words tripping over each other. “Right! Exactly! It’s clinical. Very… practical.”
The blonde smirked. “Except when you’re sobbing into the pillows.”
“— Aftercare pillows!” the redhead yelped, then froze. Her entire face flushed crimson. “…Shit.”
Strachey exhaled— a quiet, amused sound. The redhead groaned, covering her face with her hands. The crowd shimmered with nervous laughter, the tension too much for some. There were some clumsy, hurried exits…
Chloe didn’t laugh. She was too busy memorizing the way the redhead peeked through her fingers— not at the crowd, not even at Strachey, but at the blonde, seeking approval, solidarity.
And the blond, not at all arch, nodded at her, soft and slow, acknowledging their shared experience.
It was the most devastating thing Chloe had ever seen.
The conference organizers shifted uncomfortably in their seats, exchanging glances that telegraphed creeping horror. They’d invited Strachey to this liberal stronghold expecting a spectacle— perhaps even a public unraveling. Instead, their venue had become a stage for his most brazen advertisement yet. Not for indenture contracts as a concept, but for him— the man who could take broken, brilliant women and remake them into something devastatingly honest. The cameras kept cutting to audience reactions: women leaning forward, fingers hovering near parted lips. Men adjusting their collars. Every shot seemed to tell the same story— This isn’t coercion. This is alchemy.
Strachey finally spoke, his voice velvet-wrapped steel. “There are no more questions.” A pause, just long enough for the crowd to realize he wasn’t asking. “Because you’re not really asking them. You’re asking me.” His gaze swept the room, skipping over Chloe as if she were furniture. “The answer is simple: I don’t want reluctant participants. I want women who understand the cost— and find the price worth it.” He smiled, slow and lethal. “As I hope you just did.”
Chloe’s stomach dropped. The entire room had been played. Every probing question, every gasp of outrage— all of it had been carefully allowed, framed to showcase exactly what Strachey intended: not victims, but volunteers. Not prisoners, but converts. The redhead’s accidental confession about beauty had been the kill shot— an unscripted moment too raw to be discredited.
As Strachey guided his indenture girls toward the exit, Chloe lunged forward without thinking. “Wait.” Her voice cracked. The brunette turned first, eyebrows arched. Strachey didn’t stop walking, had probably not even heard, certainly didn’t care. Chloe swallowed, speechless.
The blonde laughed— a bright, cruel sound. “Oh, honey.” She flicked a glance at Strachey’s retreating back. “You don’t want a contract.” Her smile sharpened. “You want him.”
The doors swung shut behind them, leaving Chloe standing there, hollowed out, filled with shame and despair and futile anger. Around her, the crowd erupted into debates, but the energy had shifted— less outrage, more hunger. A woman nearby touched her own throat absently, her fingers tracing where the redhead’s chain had lain.
In the weeks that followed, Chloe’s employers at the Ministry doubled down. Editorials branded indenture contracts as “modern-day slavery,” but the language grew slippery— no longer just a women’s issue, but a freedom issue.
Sensible voices pointed out that Strachey wasn’t the sole example, or even a representative one; there were now too many instances of variants of the contract, numbers of indentees to keep up with, even for the well funded women’s rights organisations, and of course many of the men were outright sadists, their contracts laced with loopholes for cruelty and abuse.
But the counter-narrative spread faster: forums where women meticulously ranked “girl buyers,” dissecting their reputations like restaurant reviews. Avoid — mean and cranky., pays well but micro-manages bathroom breaks. The words consent and choice were wielded like weapons— by both sides. And, too, it was pointed out that there were female ‘owners’ (the word was beginning to stick, even though no-one wanted it to; public opinion likes to be truthy, even when it hurts), and male ‘slaves’ (this word too, was being normalised: short, clear words are just so much cheaper— and fit into headlines).
Chloe’s office became a battleground. Her boss slid a dossier across her desk— photos of bruised thighs, a girl’s tear-streaked face. “We need you to hold a press conference— deal with this nonsense,” he said. “Emphasise the coercion, the cruelty, the vulnerability of the girls.” She stared at the images, her pulse erratic. The bruises were real, but so was the girl’s Instagram post from yesterday: 3 years with M. Best decision ever. The caption paired with a sunlit shot of her laughing, her collar just visible under a silk scarf.
One evening, the economist pressed a mug of chamomile into her hands. “You’re troubled,” he murmured. Chloe hadn’t even noticed. The screen before her displayed Strachey’s latest acquisition— a former Olympic fencer, her interview clipped and lethal: I traded medals for mastery. He demands perfection. The economist followed her gaze, his brow furrowing. “You don’t actually think they have a point, do you?”
Chloe’s laugh was too sharp. “Of course not.” But her fingers crept to her own throat, imagining the weight of a chain. That night, she dreamed of the redhead’s voice— something beautiful— and woke with her nails raking her ribs, as if she could claw out the yearning.
The Ministry’s final draft of the Prohibition landed on her desk. Chloe skimmed the clauses, her stomach tightening. Against her advice, the politicians had gone overboard; criminalized negotiation— any discussion of terms before signing could be construed as grooming. She thought of Strachey’s interviews, the girls’ unscripted confessions. Under this law, they would be accomplices.
Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. Second lesson. Freedom is just another cage. She deleted it, her breath ragged. Outside her window, the Stockholm sunset bled red across the water. Somewhere, a girl was signing a contract. Somewhere, a man was counting his money. And Chloe— Chloe was drafting legislation to save them both from themselves.
