James Goodman, a lonely writer

Author's Note:

1. Unlike many other stories here, this story will focus not only on domination. This story is about a man who is insecure and grows more confident in himself through the app. Some women will be treated nicely by him, while others get to feel the app's true powers over them. Actual dom scenes will start (relatively) late and start off as soft-dom because of character development.
   
2. The first three chapters will be a lengthy introduction to get the self-doubting main character to actually use the app. It gets steamy in chapter 5. The main focus of the story are the women, there will be no overarching story that puts the MC in any true danger.

Ugh, 8AM. What a horrible time. But not like I had a choice. I was lucky to have a place to live in and a job to earn money from, even if it's just on a trial basis. If only this wasn't a 45 minute train ride in either direction. Sluggishly, I made my way to the kitchen, ate some cereal while still half asleep, and then showered, brushed my teeth, and went on my way.

My life had gone to shit so easily. Just a week ago, I was working at my dream job. I was a full-time, employed fashion journalist. But we had to close fast. But that was over now, and it was all because of my sister-in-law.

When I lost my job on such a short notice, I had hastily applied to every newspaper in my vicinity, **** for a job. Those newspapers weren't even looking for a new employee, my former coworkers had as little luck as I did. In desperation, I called my parents and asked them, if I could live with them again and search for jobs here. No postings as usual, so I was planning for this to take a while. At least I wouldn't have to worry about rent.

But then it happened. My brother found out that the wife he had fathered 2 children with, had been cheating on him. He was devastated. Worst of all, her new lover was rich and they hired the best divorce attorney they could, it seems like he'll never see his kids again. And the home he paid for, of course. Stories like these make my blood boil. Stupidly, my landlord had already found someone who needed to move in urgently. And I had already sold the new tenant my old furniture, because I couldn't have asked my parents to store some extra closets until I got a job offer. Thanks to that bitch of a sister-in-law, my new apartment was now empty, besides my loose belongings lying on the floor, covered in a plastic bag to make the dusting easier.

I was on the train to my potential workplace. This was it. I either make it through the interview or I'd have to wait months for the next job, while having to pay rent. I could only afford rent for two months, if mom were to cook everything to me. Dammit, this ruined my mood again. I had won a prize for my writing just five months ago, and here I was, age 24, begging my mommy to pay for my food, living in an apartment that looked like the beginning stages of a hoarder. I was always a shy person too, and honestly, I don't think many people like me. I'm not an awful person by any means, I'm just not interesting either. I don't have much going on in my life besides my job and the video games I play during the weekends.

I entered the office building. It looked very modern from the outside, and the interior seemed to be the same. It cheered me up a bit. In the panic about my living situation, I wasn't picky about the writing jobs I applied to. More precisely, I just applied, who cares what kind of magazine it was, I needed food on my plate and my rent paid. At least, I had a bit of luck, it was still a fashion magazine, but it focused on women's fashion. I mainly wrote about men's fashion at my old job, since that was what I knew best, but I had a bit of expertise with women's fashion, too.

I entered the correct room, it seems that the rest of the office was empty anyway. This was it, I now had to do my least favorite part of job hunting: talking with people. I entered the room hesitantly, and was greeted by a woman, probably in her forties: "You're James, correct?" "Y-Yes", I answered, "I'm here for the interview."

I sat down and she began right away: "Well, I read the document you sent me and I want to discuss that with you. I had asked you to write a short review of two of our recent articles. I do value your input in these articles a lot, but I have a question: Why did you chose the two you picked?"

"O-oh", I answered, not really having expected her to be happy with my feedback, "The first article seemed interesting to me, comparing prices of various shoes for men and women. I think the article could have gone a lot more in depth, however. For the second one I felt like picking a random one seemed like a good choice, so that you could judge my skills on a topic that is less interesting to me."

"Interesting approaches, thank you for being so honest with me. I have another question, but it concerns your CV. It says that you were fired from your previous job, just a day before it closed down. What's up with that?"

"A-Ah well", I began to explain, "o-our closure was a kind of preventative thing. My old boss had tried everything but he knew that magazine had to be shut down within a month to avoid debts. It was company policy to give three weeks of severance pay to fired writers and well uh..." I began to nervously tick with my shoe.

"Are you saying he did that for you?"

"K-kinda. He told me that he wished he could do this for everyone, but he felt like I was the most important employee, one that helped us stay afloat for longer. I-I guess it was his way of saying 'thank you.'?" Honestly, to this day I still can't believe it. I'm sure I wasn't the only one, I can't be. I might have won a prize, but 3 weeks' pay is a bit much to spend on a writer that isn't working. But that magazine is behind me now anyway, isn't it? No reason to think about it now. And the cash will help me stay afloat for a while longer.

"Okay, James, I'm willing to give you a chance. We've had a bit of an emergency regarding one of our employees too, so your application came just in the nick of time."

"Thank you so much Ma'am." I blurted out at an almost incomprehensible speed.

She chuckled a bit: "Please just call me boss for now. Anyhow, Dan will be gone for 3 months. You can work here for the three months, if you can give me a good idea for an article and we choose to print it at our Friday meeting."

"Thank you, boss. In fact, I actually had one idea that I started researching on back at my old job, but I never completed it. If I cut the comparison to men that article should be ready by Friday. The idea is to look at shoes throughout history and compare their focus on form or function. The oldest shoes were used by hunter-gatherers, right? They were probably very much designed for hunting and gathering, not for being stylish. Today, we have both shoes designed for specific tasks - like hiking - but also ones designed for fashion. All of this also tells us about the society around these shoes and how they treated women."

I might have sounded a bit feminist there at the end, but it was kind of true anyway. "I like the idea", she interrupted my thoughts, "I'm curious what you come up with." She smiled in a way that seemed more polite that genuine.

We went over less interesting stuff (for the purposes of this story, anyhow), like my working hours and my pay. I was allowed to work from home all days except Fridays, which was awesome. With this job I could afford furniture again! And traveling 90 minutes less everyday might even give me the time to build them up. Everything was looking great, until she reminded me of something I dreaded... "Wanna meet your new coworkers?"

At this moment I realized that it was already 9AM, and the office was slowly filling with people. Well, three to be exact. The three besides Dan (and now me) that worked here full time. As I exited the office, I saw someone familiar...