“The world runs on fetishes, things we like and believe in. The corporate world spends billions to promote them. They call it brand marketing. They show, we trigger: Mercedes, Nike, Apple, the Golden Arches, IBM, Amazon, Google, Coca-Cola, Netflix, Starbucks. An endless list. Relentless.”
That’s one way of looking at things. It’s the way fictional San Francisco media executive Mary Steff, a BDSM enthusiast, generalizes and justifies her personal erotic preferences in author Julia Wood’s provocative thriller “Possessed.”
The author, in taking it a step further, explains, “Most of us are possessed, controlled, by our circumstances—genes, family, work, marriage, parenthood, geography, the shackles of our education and work experience that limit our lives and careers. Subtle slavery owns us all.”
So just how subtle is subtle?
That question is explored on many levels in “Possessed”: From a sexual perspective, is it “subtle slavery” when the slave willingly and enthusiastically agrees to the relationship? Is it the mere submissive gene at work that allows the slave to agree to its station in the first place? Is there a scenario in which the slave does not agree? Is it pleasurable? Does the slave have to be totally devoid of all power and control to enjoy the circumstance? What exactly does it mean to be possessed?
Steff, in speaking to failed actor and freelance writer Robin Jinnes, has a very personal, powerful fetish in mind – and she has devised a bizarre scheme not only to feast on her obsession but to exact revenge on someone who has wronged her.
Steff is in a precarious position at her publishing house, Mindcraft, not seeing eye to eye and feeling the heat from her chairman to reverse declining profits. The longevity of her plum position is not a safe bet.
But Steff…