"Where I found a living creature, there I found a will to power; and even in the will of the servant I found the will to be master. And where sacrifice and service and loving glances are, there too is will to be master. There the weaker steals by secret paths into the castle". -Friedrich Nietzsche



Rick and I were married almost five years when he told me he wanted a divorce. My husband had always lived his life to please his family, and never got the chance to sow any wild oats. My oats were mostly sown before I married, so I asked for what was necessary, and then I let him leave. I never wanted to live the way most people seemed to, confusing love with fear.

I worked in alcohol and drug counseling, and my friend George was a probation officer. We were in daily contact because he sent his DUI and first-time drug offender clients to the counseling center. After Rick and I separated, George and his wife began inviting me to parties at their home. I wasn't in much of a party mood and after two or three invitations were declined, George invited me out to a local bar—no party, no pressure, just me and you, he said—and a friend he'd often spoken of, named Ray.

We met at the bar that evening, George was George like he always was, and Ray was quiet, like he had better things to do. The conversation drifted, politics, favorite books, Ray and I both said "A Clockwork Orange" was our favorite film. We volleyed our favorite bits of dialogue back and forth, George sat back and watched and nursed a beer.

After meeting Ray, I finally accepted one of George's party invitations, but I didn't have much in common with George's other friends. Across the room, Ray sat on a loveseat as if it were a throne, and when he caught my eye he patted the empty space beside him with an air that said, "Come hither"; I completed the performance and eagerly obeyed. George's other friends exchanged looks and whispered and thought it was all just terrible, and that was half the fun of it for me and Ray.

I wore black heels and tight black little dresses, and I read books for pleasure that some of Ray's friends struggled with in graduate school; Ray said I was quite a prize when he heard them asking me about this or that in Nietzsche's work. I watched him proudly watching me as I threw my blond hair back and flashed red fingernails in the air, correcting his friends about this passage here or that aphorism there.

I admired his self-assurance and lightning quick intelligence, and there was an air of danger about Ray that drew me in; even his name conjured up images of a black fin jutting out of foam and glass-gray water. To say he didn't coddle people's insecurities would be an understatement; Ray looked for weaknesses to expose, he tested people, and I was no exception. He regularly and brazenly flirted with other women in front of me. And I never complained and never cried, but instead I stayed and played the game with him. I encouraged him at every turn—and then I drew warm water and bathed him head to toe, and if at night he could not sleep, I stroked his hair and sang him lullabies. And in time, Ray fell in love with me, as I hoped, or as I calculated, perhaps, he would.

Nothing lasts that's born of such intensity—thankfully I emerged a humbler, wiser woman, and I have no idea where Ray might be today. Some relationships are destined to be on and off again, some are an all-or-nothing god's roll of the dice; the latter, end as cautionary tales.

Some people say I was newly separated after five years of marriage, that I simply didn't want to be alone. Or they say that I was young and love is always foolish, or some say I was just confused; some people say I needed love so badly I debased myself. But any woman who has done what I have done, knows better.

I do not write to say this applies to all women, but for those to whom it is applicable, this must be understood: a woman who has done as I have knows, we sometimes give ourselves to men as slaves in order to enslave them. Sometimes we feed the beast of prey until it growls at strangers, then offers us its paw. The will to power sometimes steals into the heart by secret paths. The will to master sometimes comes disguised as sacrifice and service.