Photo-Illustration: MaryLu Herrera

A woman takes her unconventional relationship to a new level: 35, single, Brooklyn. 

DAY ONE

10 a.m. Getting ready to head to leave my apartment in Brooklyn for campus in Manhattan. I’m a professor and I teach class three times a week.

11 a.m. I text Henry, my ex — we recently broke up after six months together. He’s a scientist, and I’m a professor and journalist, so we had plenty to talk about and hit it off right away. He was intense from the beginning — sexually confident in a way that felt rare. Eventually, I wanted more than he was willing to give, emotionally. He wasn’t looking for anything serious, and last month, he ended it. Our last time together as a couple involved rope — and marked a shift. He’d always been a daddy in bed, but that night, he tied me up and pushed us somewhere else. I always liked the idea of being restrained, but I’d never actually tried it. A few weeks post-breakup, I found myself back in his bed again — but now, as his submissive. Collared, owned, and hornier than ever.

This morning, he gives me instructions. “Write ‘daddy’s girl’ on your right hand, take a picture with your left, and send a voice note when you cum.” I have until the end of the day. The thought alone gets me wet.

1:30 p.m. I’m about to teach a class. We text a bit before it starts — mostly memes.

4 p.m. He wants to know what color panties I’m wearing. “Black,” I say. “Good.”

9:12 p.m. Last week, he suggested we start a shared journal via Google Doc — an archive of our journey, a way to track our emotional and erotic shifts. I wasn’t sure at first, but now I’m writing every day. It’s turning into something I crave.

11:30 p.m. I complete the task: I snap a picture, make myself come, and record a voice note. When he texts back, “Good girl,” I melt. I check the doc for his latest journal entry, read it in bed, and come again.

DAY TWO

9 a.m. I wake up in my apartment in Brooklyn with the sun pouring in. I look at my phone and see Henry’s message: He loved the voice note and the photo. “Proud of you,” he wrote.

11 a.m. Coffee, emails, grading. It’s the busiest time of the semester, and I should be focused but I’m distracted. Henry let me sleep over again last week, which feels sweet and familiar but also complicated. We’re not together. But the way he held me after our last scene? It was intense and he spanked me for over an hour, then tied me up and fucked me slowly to the point where he was barely inside me and I was repeatedly orgasming.

12:31 p.m. I ask for today’s task. It’s similar to yesterday’s, but this time, he wants me to suppress my voice in the recording. He wants control, even over my sounds.

2 p.m. I start today’s journal entry. The writing helps me understand what submission really means to me. I’m openly queer, have multiple graduate degrees — including one in gender studies — and I’m trying to reconcile all of that with this new dynamic.

5:14 p.m. Henry and I text a little. But the thing about us is that we can go into dom/sub mode via text then quickly shift out of it and talk about whatever. That’s the thing about Henry, he’s always really gotten me and seen me, and post breakup I’ve struggled with not being able to have that anymore.

9:12 p.m. I finish editing my journal entry. When we started this, I was nervous. Curious. Unsure what it would mean to be a sub, especially with someone I’d already been involved with before. But Henry’s calm. Experienced. He talks about consent and negotiation like it’s second nature. When he asked me to keep a shared journal with him, something we’d both write in to track the highs, the lows, the want, I hesitated. But now it’s become a ritual. A way to make sense of what’s unfolding.

11:30 p.m. I take the photo, record the voice note, and touch myself. When I finish, I get a one-line reply: “Good girl.” It lands right on my chest. After, I check the Google Doc for his entry, read it in bed, and come again.