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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45248
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45248
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

# You can't

This is not a romance. This is a master having sex with his slave. Or wanting to have sex.

But he's going to free the slave! Is he now? But the person is still a slave when this all begins.

**This is an unequal relationship of exploitation.**

Is it possible for someone in a subordinate relationship to genuinely love someone above her/him? Yes, of course. A butler can be in love with his employer. A high school athlete can be in love with her coach. But you can never be sure.

Saying someone is a slave isn't the same as saying they're of lower status. This isn't an interracial (interspecies) romance about two equals who society deems to be of different values. Nor is your object of romance simply "a slave." This person is **_his slave_**.

**If someone can not say _no_ without repercussions, then it is not a real relationship. Even if _feelings!_**

If there is any "cat and mouse" business, it's the kind where the mouse better do what the cat says or it will get its head bitten clean off.

What if what you're planning involves a romance _after_ the slave is free? Meaning truly free to go, with actual options to go somewhere else (it's still exploitation if someone stays because it's their job; they still can't say "no"). If the former slave stays by (true) choice and then there is a romance, okay, maybe.

Before that happens, yes, there can be sexual attraction or emotions about the other person. But it must be in the context of the extremely unequal relationship. **You literally can not get more unequal between adults than master and slave.** It makes all the other examples pale in comparison.

**So there is no teasing.**

Teasing love implies both parties are free to enter into a relationship. But one of the parties is literally not free. If the master has feelings for the slave, there is nothing sweet about it, just creepy and off-putting. No slave would have feelings for a master that weren't tempered by the reality of the situation.

The question in the title may be generic, but your story is not. This is not a story about two people from opposite sides of the tracks who slowly fall for each other. While there are sub-genres where a master and slave falling in love is considered awesome, any one with any sense of the real world will be cringing.

**You must handle this with extreme care and not pretend it is an ordinary romance.**

Original score: 24