When the Queen Kneels Pt. 01

Author's note:

This is my first story and I have tried to write the kind of story I want to read. So it is exceedingly long, character driven, realistic(ish), and focused on seduction more than the sex. This one features my favorite themes of powerful married women being corrupted, humiliated, and then dominated by lesser men.

Special thanks to the_shadow_rising and Mentalcase for writing the kind of long-form stories that I learned to crave and inspiring me to try this. Forgive me for how bad it may be!

When the Queen Kneels

Stephanie Dahlstrom towered in a lecture hall the way she once lurked in the paint--dominant, regal, unmistakable. Six feet tall without heels, her presence pulled attention like gravity. Her silky blonde hair fell in waves past her shoulder blades. Blue eyes like glacial meltwater pinned you in place the second they met yours daring you to look somewhere else. And, everyone was tempted to look somewhere else, as her body, sculpted from a decade of grueling basketball drills and relentless weight training, was a marvel. Toned calves, strong thighs, a narrow waist that curved up into flared hips and a chest that defied physics--34H bra, firm, proud, always drawing surreptitious glances. She walked like a woman who had never once yielded, and never planned to. Every lecture was a performance and every debate a battlefield. Her students respected her, feared her, wanted her--often, all at once.

She was also a woman who rarely lost. Not in college basketball, not in her PhD defense, not even in faculty meetings where tenured old men wilted under her smile. Her entire life Stephanie was driven by this hyper-competitive edge that she was seemingly incapable of turning off. Until, she met her future husband Bryce Dahlstrom who complimented her perfectly.

Bryce Dahlstrom had once been a star swimmer, all lean muscle and stamina. Now in his mid-thirties, he taught kinesiology and still had the abs to prove it. He was competitive, just like Stephanie, but in a quiet way. He was living proof that nice guys don't finish last, as he had parlayed his swimming scholarship into a successful collegiate career that led him to marry one of the most beautiful women on the planet. And while he was as fit as ever, there had always been a quiet inadequacy he carried under the covers: well-intentioned, athletic, but modestly endowed.

Then there was Leon Wilkerson, the grad student from the Anthropology Department who seemed to have crawled out from under a campus vending machine one night and never left. He was maybe 5'3" in boots with a hook nose, acne scars, and a smile that never quite reached his eyes. Despite being thin, he managed to have a pot-belly, which could usually be seen through his greasy stained shirts. But underneath that façade, was a dangerously perceptive and manipulative man.

Stephanie, however, just knew Leon as that obnoxious pest she had to deal with at work. A persistent, semi-performative little rodent of a man who thought teasing Stephanie like a middle schooler was the secret to her heart.

One day while in the faculty lounge, Stephanie had once again verbally bested a coworker. Never passing up an opportunity to needle her, Leon chimed in" "You're like a Nordic dominatrix in a pantsuit. Scary hot."

Rolling her eyes, Stephanie replied "is that supposed to be flattery, or are you just desperately auditioning for detention?" she said, not smiling.

Leon, undeterred, smirked and wiggled his eyebrows. "You know, I bet when you played ball you could palm someone's head like a basketball. You ever do that to your husband?" he said, nodding toward Bryce. "Just lift him right off the floor like--'honey, come to bed, I'll do all the work.'"

Stephanie's voice dropped, cool and clear. "I can bench-press your ego. And that's saying something."

"Oof, icy," Leon chuckled. "No wonder you're a professor. You always have the best comebacks."

As Leon left the room, Stephanie turned to Bryce and said "what I wouldn't do to never have to interact with that toad again."

Laughing good-naturedly Bryce smiled at her and whispered "it's cute, he has a crush on you."

Flushing purple with a mixture of embarrassment and rage, Stephanie punched her husband in what was supposed to be a friendly love tap, but ended up making him wince.

What Stephanie didn't realize was that Leon's constant needling was purposeful. He was figuring out how to get her to feel things in his presence--sure, all the emotions were negative so far, but powerful emotion was powerful emotion as far as he was concerned. And, he had to admit, he quite enjoyed watching the Nordic ice princess lose her cool.

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Leon's next opportunity came next week when he decided to talk to her right as she finished office hours.

"Still rocking those heels, huh?" he said, eyes darting down to the slim stiletto boots that added two inches to her already commanding height. "You planning to step on someone today, or just enjoying the view from Olympus?"

Stephanie didn't look up from the paper she was grading, red pen slicing through a misquoted source with clinical precision. "Leon. You're not in my department. You're not in my class. You're not even particularly interesting. What exactly do you want?"

"Oh c'mon," he said, leaning against the frame. "Can't a guy stop by to brighten your day with his naturally abrasive charm?"

She capped the pen, folding her hands over the desk. "You're exhausting."

"And yet here I am," he grinned. "Like a bad rash that just keeps showing up."

Stephanie stood and came around the desk with a measured grace that felt dangerous, the way a lioness might stretch before chasing something weak and bloody through the Savannah.

She stopped just short of him, arms crossing beneath her chest, as she pointedly looked down at the much shorter man.

"What will it take," she said, voice low and sincere, "for you to stop speaking to me?"

Leon blinked. "Are you serious?"

Her expression didn't change. "You get one chance. Say it."

He scratched his chin, pretending to think, eyes roaming up, catching the sharp glint of disdain in hers. "Alright," he said finally. "We play a game of chess."

Stephanie tilted her head. "Chess?"

"You heard me. A classic battle of minds. Strategy, patience, the art of subtle domination--I thought that was your thing."

She stared, flat and cold. "Terms."

"If I win," Leon said, straightening a little, emboldened, "you have to say one nice thing to me. Every day. For a month. Not some sarcastic fake compliment, either--real, genuine stuff. 'Leon, your analysis of kinship dynamics in prehistoric tribes is deeply insightful.' That kind of thing."

Her lip twitched--not quite a smile, more like a flex of disdain. "And if I win?"

Leon shrugged. "I'll leave you alone. Forever. No more flirting, no more 'accidental' drop-ins. I'll even walk the other way if I see you on campus. Cold turkey."

"Deal," she said, before the last word had left his mouth. "Friday. 7 p. m. My office."

Leon smirked before remaking "That was... fast." He laughed as he backed out of the doorway, giving her a mock salute. "This is gonna be fun."

Stephanie didn't look up. "Not for you."

Stephanie wasn't the least bit worried that he would triumph, as she was a junior chess champion who won her high school tournament. In fact, she had bragged about her impending victory to her husband all day and encouraged him to come watch her "stomp this dweeb." Bryce rolled his eyes, but agreed and was plopped in a comfy armchair to the right of her desk. He watched as Leon arrived at 6:59, whistling, wearing a threadbare sweater with a stretched collar and jeans frayed at the hem. His hair was tied back, greasy as ever, but his eyes were sharp--too sharp. He didn't flirt. He didn't joke. He sat down across from Stephanie like he belonged there, and for the first time, she had a sensation she didn't like: she was being measured.

"Ready?" he asked simply, pulling out a travel clock from his bag. A clock. He actually brought a clock.

Her eyes narrowed. "Cute."

He didn't rise to it. Just placed it beside the board and nodded.

They played the first dozen moves fast as Stephanie moved to end him as quickly as she could. Stephanie expected Leon to make mistakes in response to her aggression, but he held strong. And then it started happening. She reached for her queen and she realized it was pinned. She hesitated and Leon took first blood as he stole a Knight with a pawn.

Stephanie's heart beat faster. She felt it in her temples, in the tips of her fingers. She'd begun to sweat under the collar of her blouse. Her thighs were tense. Her jaw, clenched, as she focused all her mental energy on reversing her mistakes. But, Leon slowly inexorably took more and more pieces as he dominated her on the chessboard. Stephanie was filled with rage as she was defeated by the most obnoxious, underwhelming, unimpressive man she'd ever met. She also was filled with something else that was completely unexpected. A potent cocktail of arousal and humiliation that she would later learn to savor, but for now was completely new to her.

Trying to hide her strong feelings, Stephanie conceded and said curtly "good game" before storming out of her own office so fast that she forgot to bring her coat. As she left, Leon seized the opportunity to needle her one more time by calling out "can't wait for tomorrow's compliment."

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Stephanie refused to speak to Bryce until they got home because she was so upset.

Then she turned her face to him, and the look she gave him made his cock throb before she'd even touched him. Her eyes were locked on, molten with something deeper than lust--humiliation transmuted into fire, a slow-roaring ache that needed to be expressed physically.

"You need to fuck me," she said. There was no debate and Bryce knew better than to ask questions.

His average size cock quickly grew as he pushed in and she groaned, deep and guttural, nails clawing down his back through his shirt. Her walls clenched around him instantly, hot and slick and furious. She bit his shoulder as he slammed into her, the slap of hips echoing against the closed door.

"Fuck--Steph," he moaned, grabbing her ass, fingers digging into firm muscle as he drove into her with a rhythm as desperate as her grip.

Her hair tangled in his fingers as she rode each thrust with feral precision, like she needed this to scrape Leon out of her brain. Every drag of his cock hit that swollen sweet spot deep inside her, and she moaned--a raw, gasping sound she rarely let slip.

"Harder," she snarled, biting his lip as he obeyed.

He fucked her like a man possessed, teeth gritted, thighs flexing, sweat beading between them as her body jerked with each thrust. She clenched harder when he grunted into her ear, wrapping her legs tighter around his waist.

Her breath was ragged. Her voice, a low growl. "Don't stop." "I'm not," he panted. "Not--fuck--not until you come."

She did. Hard. Her cry was half a scream, muffled by the crook of his neck as she bucked against him, body spasming in tight, wet pulses that dragged his cock deeper with every shudder. And then he let go too.

He buried himself to the hilt with a strained groan, cock twitching as he spilled inside her, hot and thick, his arms wrapped around her as if holding her body would keep it from combusting. They stayed like that for a minute all sweaty and breathless. Her skirt bunched around her waist, while his pants tangled around his ankles.

"what got into you?" Bryce said. "you should lose more often if this is the reward I get." He said laughing as Stephanie gave him a death stare. She, too, was perplexed by what had come over her but didn't think too much of it as her stress was temporarily abated by the fantastic fucking.

The next night, Stephanie's dreams were filled with images of a taunting Leon calling her a loser as he stood over her stroking his hard cock. As she woke up, she admonished her subconscious for such a disgusting nightmare, but she woke up so wet that she had to take a shower before going to class.

Stephanie found herself outside Leon's office that Monday morning. She was fuming at herself for losing. She didn't lose, that wasn't what she did. She was a WINNER goddamnit.

It wasn't the act of complimenting him that burned so much as the principleShe was not designed for softness on command. She gave respect when it was earned, not on schedule. She praised results, not egos. But this--this was theater, humiliation by inches, and knowing she had to do it for a month pained her. And, on some deep subconscious level that Stephanie refused to acknowledge yet, it thrilled her--to have to lower herself to say nice things about someone she hated.

She knocked and entered to find Leon sitting there expectantly.

"Stephanie," he said, as if tasting her name like wine. "I was wondering if you'd show."

She stepped in. Her heels clicked like gunshots. She didn't sit. She didn't smile.

"I came to deliver," she said, voice flat as granite.

Leon leaned back, steepled his fingers under his chin. "Let's hear it."

She hated him in that moment.

"You," she began, jaw clenched, "are... surprisingly effective at chess strategy. Particularly under pressure."

He blinked. Then--smiled. Not the smirk. Not the lazy grin. A real smile.

"That almost sounded sincere," he said.

"It was sincere," she snapped, glaring. "And don't get used to it."

That night Stephanie found herself alone and touching herself again in bed. She was reliving the chess match but this time she saw herself intentionally lose a pawn so that her defeat was even more humiliating.

"Why can't I get this out of my head?" She thought. Since masturbation hadn't fixed it, Stephanie turned to the next best thing: research. Opening up her laptop she typed in various keywords like "Arousal from being intellectually dominated."

The search results were vague at first--power dynamics, dominance and submission, D/s relationships. But none of them captured it. She added more terms.

"Erotic humiliation defeat kink intellectual dominance fetish"

That did the trick. As she read more and more she started to understand that she wasn't into degradation per se. She didn't want to be called names, spat on, made to feel worthless. That wasn't it. This was different. This was sharper. More elegant. It wasn't about being weak, it was about being strong and losing anyway. For people like her, who had won at everything their whole life, there was something deliciously taboo and addictive to finally lose and experience life on the other side.

Stephanie told herself that this was just intellectual content and that she hadn't discovered some sort of latent kink, but she couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to challenge Leon to another bet.. and whether she actually would want to win.