I have a new client whose situation I feel deeply connected to. Ms X is a mother/wife in her late thirties who confessed that she felt severed from her sexuality. She had undergone a struggle of incredible pain due to childhood leukemia and then again, as a young woman she suffered a hard childbirth. Ms X is a vibrant, attractive woman with sultry eyes and sensual quality–no one would have guessed that she felt this way. She cringed at her therapist’s advice to explore sensual massage or other touchy-feely ideas with her husband and there were no answers in the women’s magazines that addressed the issue with anything more effective than a powder puff and new lingerie. After her close friend told her about exploring BDSM and talking it over with her husband, this woman came to session with me. I can’t say what specifically moved the block—whether it was flogging her backside, binding her into vulnerability, or simply her own choosing to adventure outside of her comfort zone—but after eight years of feeling stale, the woman bloomed. My guess would be that pain had shut down her body’s ability to communicate on a sensual level and that she had to re-experience an allowable pain to feel whole again. But that’s a guess. I don’t claim to really know how the magic works; it just does. There is real joy there when she tells me that so much of her life that was stagnant is flowing again. Her husband even wrote me a thank you note. That is truly satisfying.

In your “Cure for Pain” entry, was the one session with Cleo Du Bois enough to release you from the years of childhood abuse and anger you experienced? Or did you put your dominatrix career on hold to become a masochist for a while?
I had several sessions with Madame Cleo Du Bois and they were steps towards a recovery that is ongoing. I’m not Buddha. I continue to struggle with anger and violence, but at least now I can be more honest in directing and controlling it.

“Switch” is a term in BDSM that refers to those who enjoy playing both the dominant and the submissive roles at different times. It does not mean that the desires are mirrored in one person, though they might be. For example, there are many things that I enjoy doing to my submissives such as fisting, electrical stimulation, and genital torture, that I don’t allow done to me when I choose to play the bottom role. I have never compartmentalized my identity as a masochist from my persona as a dominatrix. I am upfront with all my clients and play partners that I am also a masochist and bondage bottom. One person can be many, many things. I even like to cook.

Had you not become a dominatrix, how do you think you would have made your living?
I don’t think I would be living if I hadn’t found this outlet. I was that sado-masochistic. I do want to make it clear, though, that this is my personal history. I know many dominatrices who have day jobs and are drawn to the profession for other, less fatalistic, perhaps healthier reasons. That said, I come from a middle class, academic family and have my BA from a solid University. I have plenty of other options if I desired them. However, my personality type is extreme. Like the artist who says they couldn’t do anything else but make art, that’s my feeling toward BDSM.

Do you think you will always be in this profession, or do you see yourself in a second career?
I have always harbored several passions, the other significant one being writing. I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was eight years old and won a fuzzy, yellow Pac-Man pen in a story writing contest. It was so cool. Eight years later, I decided I wanted to be a dominatrix when I bought my first riding crop. My other key interest is in Chinese medicine and acupuncture. I think that these three pursuits feed into each other as they are about artistic expression and healing but it may also be said that I choose my professions according to the funky instruments. Crops, needles…Pac-Man.

I am actively pursuing a career in writing. (If anyone would like to send me money for writing these articles, don’t be shy…). I don’t plan to teach. My style of educating is more in guidance than instruction. However, even after I start to make more of a professional career out of writing, I would want to remain in the pro-dom industry for a long while. My hope is that all my choice professions can coexist in little ol’ me.

Is this your last entry?
These articles were going to be my last entries as I assumed I would be loaded with graduate school work—and I was right. I expended my so much of my time balancing school and S&M work that I didn’t even look at these queries until now. I will try to continue answering the list of questions as I can. Thank you for your patience.

I’ve always loved the idea of student/teacher affairs; it’s a role play fantasy that I have often entertained. In reality, I’ve never latched my fantasy onto any one of my professors. I’ve definitely assigned them Mater or Pater roles in my wanting to meet their approval and favor, but as of yet, my Wet Dream Professor usually resembles the latest movie star that has churned my butter. Cate Blanchett has been making guest appearances as of late.

After I finished my final papers and toasted the completion with my fellow aspiring writers, I took off to Chicago for a BDSM convention called Shibaricon. Shibari is a style of rope bondage that incorporates Japanese aesthetics with erotic intention. Its place in BDSM is akin to yoga in the domain of sports. The low impact, balance and suspension poses and breath-body mindfulness combine for an overall elated effect. Most rope bondage sites are filled with pretty fetish models bound in circus poses. These damsels in distress look good, but they’re a bit like the skinny gymnasts at the front of your yoga class who bend their legs behind their ears and levitate on the tips of their pinkies, while the rest of us are sweating in down dog. But, like yoga, rope bondage is not just for 90-pound contortionists, it can be done on everyone. In fact, after I came back from Shibaricon, I suspended my 77-year-old slave to test a newly learned format that resembles the architecture of the Brooklyn Bridge. I am always more impressed when I see photos of normal-weight men and women in Shibari. Curves and muscles are sexy, especially when accentuated in an asymmetric web of red hemp rope.

I love rope bondage. It’s one of my favorite activities in BDSM and I’ve sought out brilliant instructors, such as Midori and the Knotty Boys to learn how to tie effectively and safely. The rope itself is a perfect instrument. I like running it through my fingers, feeling its diameter and weight, judging its length, and testing the texture of soft cotton or slick nylon or fibrous hemp. The different kinds of rope produce a different effect on the bondage bottom. Rope is a utilitarian form of bondage. It’s inexpensive, easy to carry, and can fit to size. A well-crafted set of leather bondage cuffs can price around $200. The amount of rope needed to securely bind wrists is about five feet, less than five bucks at Home Depot. I am also pleased that my rope knowledge can be used in survival of a post-apocalyptic world gone to hell or camping. I can also wrap birthday presents in really neat ways.

Practitioners of Shibari consider it a form of martial art and it is a kind of erotic sport. The act of tying the body is foreplay. It’s not about passively accepting worship or stoically barking commands; instead it requires getting close to the partner, encircling them, binding their limbs into place. The grasping, touching, and maneuvering all develop a connection that leads to the activities that will be done to your partner’s body once it is bound. It can be done in a rough, take-down style or a sensual dance. I also love the challenge of puzzling the body together so that my partner cannot escape and yet is still in their comfort zone for erotic exchange. I play with some bottoms (people who like to be bound but don’t necessarily take on a submissive mentality—yeah, the differences in psyche are subtle and complicated) who enjoy trying to escape. I have a challenge for my Houdini’s: if they can escape my rope then they get to tie me up. It hasn’t happened yet.

Like other forms of sports, participants must be aware of safety precautions and bodily mechanics. For example, rope should never be tightly bound around joints and there should definitely be no pressure at all against the front of the neck. That is called a noose. No nooses. Sounds like common sense, yet every year there are accidents that make it to the newspaper causing everyone in the BDSM community to cringe.

So you get my drift; I love rope bondage enough to travel by plane on Memorial Day weekend to attend a conference. BDSM conventions are quite similar to a play by Beckett: profoundly existential, fetishistically repetitive, and, at times, hysterically absurd. Gender roles and social norms are tossed and reassigned at personal whim. Collars, floggers, and other symbolic adornments are brazenly displayed alongside the plastic ID cards that are printed with one-word names, often not real names, but names chosen to title their BDSM persona. By the way, if you haven’t done the detective work to find out who I am yet, don’t bother. I’ve contemplated revealing my identity but that would be so anticlimactic, so I plan to slip it in so casually you’d never notice. Oh wait, it’s already been done for me. Drats!

Back to Shibaricon. It just so happened that two other conventions were taking place in the same hotel: an ice-skating convention (which baffled me since there was no skating rink located anywhere close to the hotel; they were more Beckett than we!) and a dart-throwing convention (in which the players threw fake darts). And then there was us, 700 bondage nuts. The possibilities for cross-convention intermingling were frightening.

Shibaricon was comprised of a four-day bondage curriculum and evenings of “play time,” during which the attendees could practice and show off their craft. Classes were held from 9am to 6pm on various topics: hogties, predicament bondage, safety courses, breath training. The students came prepared with notepads and pencils and bags full of specialized hemp rope. After six hours of classes every day, I was exhausted. Every evening, when I finally made it down to the practice arena, I could barely run a lark’s head on my partner’s limbs so I chose to watch the amazing suspensions that were being rigged throughout the hotel’s conference rooms. I wandered through a landscape of trussed-up bodies, hovering from multiple jungle-gym frames. The rooms wafted of bliss and arousal. Nothing overtly sexual was taking place; it was just a group of adults sharing revelry in an engaging game. Smiles were abundant from the enjoyment of sensation, the same joy I recall every time I get a chance to scoop myself high into the air on a playground swing. It’s a chance to fly, to suspend belief for that while. In the mornings though, I awoke to the realization that I, and hundreds of others, had traveled to mid-America to learn to tie one another up.

And I thought the dart convention people were weird.

The inevitable question springs up time and time again and I assess the situation. If I am in a non-leather environment (and by that, I don’t mean vegan), I make a quick judgment as to whether the conversation will quickly degrade into an annoying interrogation a la Jerry Springer. I don’t usually find myself in those kinds of crowds though. So I answer: “Writer and Dominatrix.” And I ready myself for the questions.

The first question is almost always the same: “How did you get into that?” I’ve answered this so many times, including in my first diary entry in this space, I don’t really need to write a memoir—enough people have heard me expound upon my life story at cocktail parties that it could eventually be a Manhattan oral tradition—The Legend of Y. I would love to become an urban myth, morphing with every storyteller as in the game of telephone. Eventually, instead of being a professional sado-masochist who’s into latex and leather, I’d become a confessional play-dough-pacifist who’s into platex and weather. That sounds even kinkier.

The questions they want to ask, but usually don’t until after a few drinks is: “Do you have sex with your clients?” If I’m feeling randy, I’ll reply, “Only with my fist”—and make it clear by hitting my fist into my palm like a tough guy that I don’t mean hand-jobs.

No. I don’t have conventional sex with my clients. In fact, approximately 80 percent of my clients don’t have sexual orgasms during our sessions. In BDSM, there is such a thing called the masochist-climax, when the body goes through waves of euphoria induced by the overwhelming sensations—be it pain, pleasure, or a combination thereof. But I do consider professional domination to be part of the sex industry. I put things—metal things, silicone things, rubber things—into people’s places. They don’t put things into my places. They aren’t allowed to even touch me.

I am proud of being a professional dominatrix, but I will admit to being on defensive autopilot when I get unsolicited questions from people who are not familiar with BDSM. I think it’s important to break down stereotypes of media’s flat version of the latex dominatrix and I do enjoy educating; but not all the time, not at every dinner party, nor in a bar full of metrosexuals who look fashionably more fetishistic than I do. So from behind the safe shield of my laptop, I’ve opened my last article for questions and I’m ready to peel back every veil requested. So let’s dance.

How have you seen yourself grow or evolve as a professional in the time since you’ve been one?
As a sadist or top, I’ve honed my skills in the activities that I enjoy. I am always taking classes and learning from other players and pro-doms—whether it’s the proper use of electrical urethra dilators or implementing psychological techniques.

As a professional, I have come to a firm understanding about what I gain from the industry besides the monetary. My role as a dominatrix has evolved into a sort of life coach. I offer a safe space for masochists and submissives to come and let themselves trust, connect, and essentially heal.

As a businesswoman, I made it a criteria to analyze my work every three months to determine how I wanted to steer my practice. As in all business, you can get the clients you want by marketing. I enjoy intricate bondage sessions so my Web site has photos of bondage on my submissives. I don’t offer sessions focused on foot worship, so I don’t have photos of my feet. Simple. Those aspects have changed throughout my career, however. When I first started as a baby-dom, I didn’t know that I did not enjoy foot worship sessions. After all, I do enjoy that activity in my personal affairs; but I found that when I sat for an hour while my feet were being massaged and kissed, I would either kick the client in the mouth from being ticklish or I’d start to fall asleep if the massage was really good. Either way, it wasn’t good for business.

How has it affected your personal life?
As much as any career affects a person’s life, more than a welder’s but less than a secret-service agent. I find that the taboo aspect of my career provides a litmus test for the people I meet, determining who I will associate with, who I will date, etc. On the whole, I am grateful to say that it’s been an enriching foundation for meeting amazing, unconventional people whom I may not have met otherwise. It’s also given me the opportunity to travel and to pursue my career in writing.

Do you find that the pro work increases or decreases your enjoyment of BDSM in your personal life? Does play in your personal life ever feel like work?
Pro-dom work has increased my enjoyment of BDSM in many ways: the aforementioned skills I’ve learned on the job, the costly equipment I can write off as a tax-deduction, and the ability to explore all arenas of my polymorphous perversity all feed my personal BDSM lifestyle.

Second part: great question. At first I was going to answer Yes, sometimes personal play is like work the way that sometimes giving head during sex when you don’t feel like it is like work: you do it to appease your partner. But then I realized that it’s still not work. Work involves business interaction; personal play is purely my desire. There have been times when I am conducting a work session in a certain format, perhaps rigging a particular bondage position, and I think to myself that I want to apply the same situation for my lover. So when I put my lover through the similar scene, it feels like a routine that I’ve done before, but with more intimate connection.

Have you found that attitudes to your profession or the lifestyle have changed over the past few years?
The Net and the rise of fetish images in pop culture (from Marilyn Manson to Angelina Jolie) and in fashion rags (D&G is the fashion equivalent to S&M) have spread BDSM themes to the public eye. However, I don’t think that these images, advertisements, or pornography sites have really demystified BDSM nor made it less taboo. I think that city sophisticates are more casually accepting of other people’s lifestyle, but the profession is still widely disrespected. It is even looked down upon by many in the leather community. I have known certain leather organizations that have decreed that professional dominatrices could not be given administrative roles.

I am glad to see that the current feminist movement has begun to accept the sex industry as a valid, if not empowering, arena—though this is still a hotly debated topic. I don’t really know what the general population thinks of BDSM since I live in New York City, prefer to mingle with open-minded peeps, and am an out-of-the-closet member of the kink team. I have to read the replies to my articles and newspapers to remind myself that there are moral critics out there, hiding in airport bathroom stalls.

When someone you’ve just met asks what you do for a living, how do you respond?
I tell them that I’m Satan. Just kidding. Next question.

What’s the best and worst part of being a pro?
The best part of being a professional dominatrix: a) I get all my sadistic, controlling, nurturing, perverted needs fulfilled and a pocket full of change; b) I really do believe that this is an important, holistic healing service; c) The sexy shoes.

The worst part of being a professional dominatrix: a) Cleaning. After every session, there is about an hour or more of cleaning and, being a germaphobe, I am scrupulous about my equipment. Ropes have to be soaked and hung, metal pieces sterilized in the autoclave, leather disinfected and conditioned. It may sound glamorous to have a house slave cleaning my bathroom, but believe me, I’m not polishing my nails and eating bon bons after the client leaves; b) The profession is quite disrespected and misunderstood, so there is a greater need for balance, affirmation, and empowerment; c) Sexy shoes hurt.

Up Next: More Questions, more answers. Mistress Y plans to answer every question that was posted or is sent to her. To "And what is Love?" by J. Keats, she replies: "What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth." Like Cher's last farewell tour, she'll be back for the last article again (and again)—until she has no more answers to give and stories to tell.


I climb the stairs to the loft nest to get ready: lace into a satin corset dress and zip on leather boots. I reach into a drawer and select a certain, leather hood that has eye covers and removable gag. The leather has been recently groomed and has a creamy, rich smell. My heels click on the hard, wood floor, notifying the slave that I am approaching. I pause by the door, breathe deeply, and set an intention. I open the double, French doors, enter the Pit, and begin.

I trail my fingertips from the slave’s lowered head down the spine, feeling them react to the gentle touch. I tell them my expectations for the session, have them rise to make eye contact, and then I slip the leather over their head. The soft, black, inside suede wraps their face and tightens, as I lace the back. I lock the attached collar around the neck. “Let yourself dissolve into my leather,” I whisper by the ear. “Here, you are mine.” Placing the hood on the submissive is a ritual of claiming identity. It allows the slave to set aside the roles that they must take on outside and transform into a more primal creature of desires. Primal, but not vulgar. I have been told by various slaves that the hood makes them feel stronger and sleeker. (Likewise, when I tell slaves to crawl, I tell them to do so with the elegance of a cat). In addition to the bondage and sensory deprivation purposes, the hood is symbolic in a way that tribal masks are important to certain cultural ceremonies. A football player told me that it reminded him of the same warrior mentality and protection that the helmet provided on the field.

When I first started playing with hoods, it was a strange progression. It startled me to interact with someone whose face was erased. It was both scary and exciting to have eyes watching me from behind a black, uniform mask. I found (and still find) the exploration of imposed and discovered identity fascinating.

I do not always require a hood for my slaves, but I usually use some piece of ritual emblem—a collar, a necklace, a pair of panties—to indicate their connection to me. Objectification during BDSM play is powerful. However, I am fully aware of the importance of the slave’s individual identity within and outside of session. Once the hood comes off, the slave is a person. I take the time to know that person, too.

David is a rope bondage bottom. We have been sessioning together for seven years. Our play is somewhat casual. I dress in jeans and T-shirt and don’t slide into my sadistic or severe side. I first lead him through a series of yoga poses and breathing exercises. Then I tie him into various contortions, including a strict, cocoon—like hog tie. Sometimes, while he is in bondage, we watch a movie together or I prop my feet on him while I read the latest book he has given me.

Our mutual gusto for rope bondage was the base of our professional relationship, but years ago, I agreed to meet for a session at David’s apartment in Brooklyn. I immediately checked out and envied his book collection, which bespoke his successful career as one of the top academic press publishers. (I am a nerd posing as a dominatrix; I instantly like someone with a mean bookshelf. CD collections can make me melt, too). Our friendship has become a heartfelt one. We’ve watched the World Cup together as he rooted for France and I, for Italy. David has even been a guest at my family’s home Christmas party. Needless to say, when we have dinner after our sessions, we talk about a lot more than BDSM, which I appreciate greatly. I enjoy getting to know my clients over dinner, but many times it is still session-time for me when the conversation is basically kink therapy, their need to talk incessantly about S&M.

While many clients are lone wolves, I have couples clients, as well, with variations on gender and top/bottom roles. Trish and Tyler are a couple, a Manhattanite power couple. She is a financial advisor for a major Wall Street company and he owns, buys, and sells real estate all over the world. They walk into my studio, exuding confidence and designer cologne; hang their suits in the closet, and both get on their knees, ready to submit. I tie them face to face and the masochist game begins. In a romance that was started by competitive tennis matches, I am their referee for S&M sex. Whoever can take more whip lashes before calling mercy gets to reach orgasm, serviced by the other. It’s pretty hot.

Some clients come to see me with their intimate partner’s permission and involvement. Paul is a tall, athletic, technology engineer from Holland. He is a rubber fetishist, masochist, bondage bottom, slave, slut, cross-dressing client. When Paul met his wife years ago, he confessed his interest in kink. Throughout their relationship they experimented with kinky sex, but could not find common ground in BDSM. Having no interest in causing pain to her husband, the wife agreed, after much negotiation, to send Paul my way for one evening a month. Over the past five years, not only has Paul’s exploration in BDSM deepened with me, but his wife’s interest in power exchange and other types of kink bloomed, as well. One of my favorite sessions is when Paul came to my quarters with a chastity cage locked on his genitals. I was given a key from his wife; she held the other. I’ve often told him how much I admire the strength and honesty of his relationship and he has always replied in earnest, “I couldn’t do this if Joanne didn’t know.” That is excellent trust.

I have clients who are looking to explore submission that extends beyond session time. They are looking for a real connection of care and consistency. I send instructions via email or phone to a few, select slave/clients to keep our connection “in-play” when we are not together. I can call “slave 725” at a whim and tell him to drop to his knees and to repeat a memorized Taoist mantra for me. I can forbid him to masturbate until further notice. It’s a fun sort of bullying to dominate over the phone. (But I do not offer phone sessions to those I have not met. Simply not interested).

And then there are those clients whose course in BDSM is very familiar to me. Ness is a twentysomething, queer graduate student. She wrote to me a year ago looking to explore BDSM with a focused intention, the same way she studies martial arts and meditation. Since then, she has come to session with me every other month and has offered service. Service includes, but is not limited to, cleaning the studio, running errands, and maintaining equipment. When she enters the studio, I feel her presence add serenity to the space. BDSM is more than just kink to us. It is hot. It is sexy. It is also strengthening and affirmation. I recognize her austere serenity and am honored to guide her in her path. (Plus, I get my leather polished by a striking woman. My life rocks).

The man I let out of my cage this morning is an old man. He has slept in the cage all night, waiting for me to let him out for the day’s session. His pajama is a black, rubber cat suit. The English gentleman crawls out, wincing at the morning ache in his joints, and pauses to shake a leg cramp out. At my feet, he lowers his head and I lock a thick, leather collar around his neck. This man is known as “Property” and he proclaims his title with pride. (It’s a killer with the accent).

Property has been with me for over three years. We have a written contract that states his dedication to me and mine to him. Every year, the contract is renewed and a tattoo is etched onto his chest, a Chinese character that is meant to express his intention of purpose to me. “Slave.” “Artist.” “Friend.” This fourth year, a new tattoo will be placed below the others.

Our sessions consist of heavy corporal—his favorite instrument being the cane. For the English, caning is right up there on the list of national effects along with their football, stout ale, and fish & chips. I bind Property only into positions I know that he can be comfortable in. I have learned to be careful and patient in movement and expectations. However, despite his age and physical limitations, Property can take, with pleasure, a severe caning.

So far, it must sound incredibly disturbing and un-sexy, as though I beat and brainwash an old man for money. But let me explain the parts of our relationship that occur outside the S&M studio, the part that is not a financial exchange, when I address him by his personal name.

Property is an artist and a retired architect. We have similar interests and strong opinions on cultural events, art, literature, and politics. I enjoy going to museums with him because of his keen eye, knowledge of the technical craft, and the review of art history he imparts.

When this old, Englishman came to me for an initial session, he was an admittedly depressed, lonely widower who was looking to be owned and was allowing others to damage him. He came to me with burn scars on his body that were obviously seared with a crude car cigarette lighter. He walked with a jarring movement and would occasionally fall from stepping off a curb. While I do have an inclination to take home stray kittens and birds with broken wings, I have learned to recognize and stave off that habit with the human sort. (Thank you, Ayn Rand and Camille Paglia). I now recoil from overwrought victim mentality with a sneer. So what do I get out of our relationship besides a field day to the Met?

As his “Owner,” I have demanded that Property take painting classes, make appointments to see the doctor, and learn Tai Chi routines. Every other session starts with a physical warm up that resembles a Richard Simmons work out. “Do the pony!” does not mean equestrian play in this case. I even have Property list his daily meals and write a journal to maintain his nutrition and memory. While wearing the hood and without, he is under my control. In short, I am his caretaker.

The reason I devoted myself to Property is a Freudian cliché. My father. As a Chinese daughter, I was expected to take care of my father in his old age. However, had he lived to an old age, I would not have been able to take him into my sanctum. My father’s belligerent control, anger, and abuse devastated the possibility of that kind of relationship. Through my caretaking of Property, I am relieving my feelings of obligation and duty towards someone with whom I actually cherish spending time. They say that you can’t choose your family, but I can choose my Property.

Up Next: Everything you wanted to know about our dominatrix---and are no longer afraid to ask.

Client is the word that makes them squirm. In the general sex industry, clients who frequent escorts, strip clubs, and massage parlors may freely discuss their rendezvous and even pass on referrals to “the boys.” It’s a display of machismo and high capitalism to pay for sex (once in a while); to pay for torture and the denial of sex seems ludicrous to the common mindset. Except in anonymous, specialized chatrooms, BDSM clientele are rarely encouraged or at ease to discuss their experiences with their Dominatrixes. To divulge that they enjoy eroticism without sex would be social castration. I proclaimed in my most recent diary that the dominatrix profession is misinterpreted, underappreciated, taboo, and taken for granted. I would venture to say that clients of the industry are even more marginalized and misjudged.

The first assumption that people tend to make about my clients is that they are super wealthy, white, CEO’s with alpha personalities who need to be humiliated and tortured to blow off steam. One theory I’ve heard often is that these financial dictators are seeking punishment for their corrupt treatment of others, as though they are religiously repenting on their knees as I lash them with a bullwhip. Freud has pigeonholed fetishists as the sexually stunted, who erotically commune with objects rather than people. Other psychoanalysts presume that all masochists were abused children and are regressing and reenacting violent episodes. Overall, the general public tends to mock BDSM clients as self-deprecating and self-loathing pervs.

My clienteles’ vocations are of a wide range that include: classical musician, political journalist, world-renowned chef, social studies teacher, opera singer, fireman, ballet dancer, computer geek, government consultant, NASA engineer, university publisher, pro-skateboarder, hip-hop star, bartender, movie celebrity, and yes, the stock broker, lawyer, doctor, and financial dictator. Did I mention the French circus clown?

There is no way to generalize their personalities or to link their characteristics to their fetishes and desires. No “all bondage bottoms are control freaks with dominant mothers.” No “cross dressers are big, macho men who need an outlet to be sensual.” The only general character trait that I would assign all clients is that they have enough courage to address their desires and to seek them out. I am not saying that all clients are self-aware and confident. But if they make it through the dungeon doors, mine or other commercial venues, at least they brave an outlet of time to get in touch with their inner personas and be truthful about it to another person.

Many of the clientele in the industry are “Johns”; that is the anonymous male who gives a fake name when booking an hour session, enters the dungeon with shifty eyes, and leaves in a hurry while still buckling his pants. These clients are the ones who solicit fast-food-domination (see my earlier Power Lunch entry). They are in and out. No questions, not much small talk, minimal interaction. I am pleased and grateful that there are so many Johns and that there is a well-populated Dom industry in New York City that accommodates them. However, as easy and lucrative as it would be to flip a whip and hand a to-go-torture meal to a John, that style of business would burn me out.

I like my clients. I am friends with many of my clients. I love some of my clients as if they were family. And I will confess that I have dated a few of my clients. Many dominas have (whether they admit to it or not). Where else are we going to meet people who aren’t shocked by our profession? I do not suggest that clients seek out romantic relationships from their professional dominatrix though. There are very few stories that end happily ever after—most end with shattered fantasies and hearts stabbed with a stiletto.

I enjoy the unique personalities and backgrounds of every client. While I do have certain rules that must be adhered to, my philosophy of domination is not to squelch every slave into a mold to just be part of a stable, but to draw out the best part of them within the BDSM context. For example, the mentality of training an efficient house servant is far different than guiding a visionquest masochist or binding a bondage enthusiast.

Some masochists and bondage enthusiasts do not relate to submission. They enjoy the sport of extreme physical engagement, but have no interest in kissing my boot to thank me. And that, in their case, is fine by me. However, some of the most adamant “non-submissive” clients have eventually admitted to feeling safe enough with me that they become intrigued with exploring play in submissive form. I don’t pump my ego with thoughts that I have conquered them with supreme skills of psychological superiority. The key element that allows a client to explore vulnerability is trust. They trust me and me, them.

The obvious assumption regarding trust is the exchange of money. They are paying for a service, so why shouldn’t they trust that they will get what they want? But the financial trade is not where the trust stems from. The trust between a client and a pro-dominatrix is rooted in genuine enjoyment, open judgment, and safety.

The word “lifestyle” is used repeatedly in pro-domination and the kink world at large. It is a fad for professional dominatrixes to advertise as lifestyle, as opposed to whipping ass for easy money (not so easy, actually), and yet have vanilla relationships outside of the business. In this context, it seems that the definition of lifestyle is simply the genuine interest and pleasure in BDSM engagement. That would mean that clients, by their mere pursuit and obvious pleasure of kink sessions, are lifestyle. However, when I asked a few of my friends in the BDSM community, I received a much more discerning definition. Michele Serchuk, an erotic arts photographer and S&M educator, explains:

Defining someone as a lifestyle requires two things to be present to some degree:

First, they would be people who have intimate erotic BDSM relationships. They might also have intimate
vanilla erotic relationships. The key element here is, is there intimacy in their SM? Not “Do I pay someone for play,” or “Do I pick up date at an SM party every so often.” …but, with my lover, friend, owner, mistress, whatever … is there intimacy between myself & my play partner(s)?

Second, they’d be someone who is out to some degree about being kinky to the people they’re close to. Not necessarily publicly or to bio-family, but certainly their close (probably non-kinky) friends & absolutely anyone vanilla that they’re lovers/partnered with. Not that it’s your pals’ business exactly what you do when you fuck, but it’s like being gay. Being out to one’s inner social circle as gay or kinky is a general thing, but an important part of who you are if that’s where your intimate relationships live. And certainly being out to vanilla lovers/partners is an indication of whether this is deep with you, lifestyle for you, or not.

As an aside … I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not being lifestyle. Some people don’t have kink deep enough in their blood for it to matter so much. Similarly, I don’t feel qualified to judge why someone should or shouldn’t be closeted about being kinky (or queer). But I don’t think you can say you’re lifestyle if you don’t have kink dynamics in your life on an emotional level, and those who care about you & are primary in your life don’t know that about your identity.

I couldn’t have said it better myself and emphasize an agreement with the aside note: No judgment on closeted kinksters. Clients, though sincere enough about their enjoyment of BDSM to cross socially tangential lines, may have a wife and kids at home who are completely unaware of daddy’s dark side. There are reasons for compartmentalization that I do not presume to understand nor judge. However, there are plenty of clients who explore BDSM in their personal, intimate relationships. These clients are also in the lifestyle of BDSM.

I have many young clients who are in the process of forming their comfort level with BDSM and what it means to them as a whole. I must admit that, though I do not judge the need to compartmentalize kink from primary relationships, I do urge many of my single clients to find intimate partners who are at ease with their BDSM involvement. One young, handsome client told me about his inner conflicts about finding a girlfriend who is into kink. He admitted that he has a hard time sustaining vanilla intimacy. “So be courageous and make kink a priority,” I advised. He can’t. He is an aspiring politician. If a relationship goes wrong, the woman could decide to out him to the press. Yeah, that’s a hard one. Careers tend to be a major reason that many clients don’t explore lifestyle relationships. I wish we lived in a world where what happens behind the bedroom/dungeon doors is nobody’s business. But that is not reality.

There are a handful of professional dominatrixes who come to see me as clients. I guess they must feel comfortable that I post my own declaration online of having been a client to several professional dominas in the past and present. I state with pride—I’ve submitted to some of the best Dominas in the scene and paid their full tribute. Which is my contest with clients who have an issue with being clients? There are people who contact me through my professional advertisement, yet have a problem with the monetary aspect of my services. They feel that they shouldn’t have to pay for sessions, yet still seek my attention. I have negotiated and bartered session time for people whose income really cannot meet my standard without dipping into the milk money. Usually, they make up for the tribute by cleaning my studio or offering other services.

Some are looking to date me with the fantasy that during the date, I’ll lure them into my quarters for tie and torture. My answer: If you meet me through my professional website, then you are soliciting my profession. It is like soliciting a doctor to operate on you for free because you’re a likeable guy. If you don’t want to pay for a professional session then don’t—go to a BDSM event to meet a compatible partner. I will consider sessioning for free when universal health care is established.

I am confident in my profession, but I am wary of hubris or “top’s disease,” a term that applies to dominants who actually believe their role applies to everyone. Dominatrixes sometimes buy into their own advertising hype. I am flattered by my success and feel blessed to have such great clients who are good people around me. I know it sounds contradictory, but one word of advice that I would impart on those who are interested in professional domination is humility. Power exchange is a game, a drama in this kinky theatre. Both persons of the exchange are equal and then establish their roles with consent. When someone comes to me and wants to submit their vulnerability to me, I do not take that submission lightly. To me, “client” isn’t such a dirty word.

Up Next: The Face Behind the Hood


I am one of the rare breeds of punctual New Yorkers. This time, I already had my Atlantic open, ordered a cup of hot tea, and was prepared for the wait. The late time for late New Yorkers goes up exponentially when those New Yorkers are (a) wearing high heels, (b) toting children, and (c) my friends. I was close to the last page of my magazine and already browsing the ads for travels adventures to Peru when Mistress T arrived.

With her ponytail swinging, T trotted in wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and Converse sneakers, pushing a stroller that sat her two-year-old daughter, Carla. I was delighted to see the little girl. I had thrown their baby shower at my studio. We had hid all the dungeon equipment and hung pastel balloons and streamers from the steel suspension unit. To this day, I still find bits of glittery confetti in the corners of the Dojo (my studio) that say “Welcome Baby.” It’s a nice reminder that everything in life is versatile.

T took off Carla’s spring coat to reveal a punk rock outfit of striped tights, hot pink shorts, and a black, fitted Ramones T-shirt. She is clearly the coolest little kid I know. Most kids I know wear Osh Kosh or nonsensically cute outfits inspired by the Lollipop kids of Oz. I am not around children very often, so I am still fascinated by their tiny hands and shoes. My curiosity dissipates quickly though, once they start shrieking, which I find ironic since I listen to grown men shriek on a daily basis. But I know what to do with the latter—latch a gag in their mouth. (I can’t help but smirk whenever I see a mother pop a rubber pacifier into their child’s open wail.)

T and I chatted about hair dye and marriage. T has a phenomenal, kinky marriage to a sexy, budding rock star. He is currently on tour across the country, leaving T to rough it as a single mother for a few months, a single mother with a full time, emotionally exhausting career.

“I’m not seeing new clients right now,” she confided in me as she peels stickers for Carla to stick on the table and plates. “I just don’t have the energy to give to needy slaves while I am the only one taking care of this one. I can’t even have a business conversation on the phone with Carla around. I have to leave the room. Even when she was younger and didn’t understand a word yet, I couldn’t separate my attention to talk the ‘tie-me-beat-me’ talk. I mean, if she starts wailing while I’m on the phone, what am I supposed to do—put the guy on hold while he is revealing his fantasy of being spanked by a Catholic school girl? ‘Hold it there with the pleated skirt and paddle, sir, I’ve got to change a diaper.’ Yeah right, Catholic school girl dissolved and replaced by visions of lactating mom in house slippers.” She laughed and tried to peel a firmly-placed Elmo sticker off her water glass.

Mistress F arrived next, wearing Chanel heels and holding a Burberry bag in one hand and her four-year-old daughter, Krissy, in another. F owns a sophisticated, three-playroom dungeon in midtown that she rents out to other independent dominas. As well as being an elegant domina, she is a keen businesswoman. When I returned to New York City in 2000, I rented from her studio and we began a mutual admiration for one another’s business integrity. Professionalism in the professional dominatrix industry is exceptional.

If you scan the popular BDSM internet-advertisement sections—Eros Guide and Max Fisch—you will find over 100 independent Dominas and over 20 “houses” with 10-30 women on staff. My guess is that only about 50 women are able to support themselves completely by their BDSM career. Many of the amateur dominatrices are uneducated in the craft and, many times, unsafe and unsound. They cater to clients who are looking for a quick fix of toe-sucking or face-slapping. I call this level of the business “Fast Food Domination.” I see the need for this echelon of the industry and I am truly glad that it exists. Out there, beyond my Dojo.

I do want to make a distinction between novice doms or “baby-doms”—a term I used to describe myself when I was learning the ropes at a house of BDSM—and amateur doms. Novices are sincere about wanting to learn the art of SM. They take classes and apprenticeships and generally have a healthy dose of humility.

F set Krissy down next to Carla and told her in Spanish to play with the younger girl. “She is already in training to be a diva and devil,” F told us. “I got her a little rhinestone tiara for her birthday and she wore it for a month. And last week, she took $300 from my wallet. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find it, questioned my husband, my son. Finally, days later, I see that she has it in her little toy purse and when I asked her why she took the money she just said, ‘I deserve it.’” F rolled her eyes, but with a grin. Krissy flashed her big blue eyes and the same grin as she instructed Carla on where to place the stickers.

We talked about business but in a sort of code that keeps the little girls from absorbing shop talk. I inquired about the pricing of tribute, the fee we charge per hour. Everyone has been raising their fees an extra $50 over the payment I ask. I wanted to know how it has affected their businesses and began to consider my own hike. We exchanged information on pesky and potentially dangerous clients. “Francis has been calling around again—the guy with the collapsed nasal voice who wants to lick armpits.” We discuss the latest BDSM bust–all of us groaning and taking a swig of iced tea. Every so often a scandalous Dominatrix story makes the front cover of the Post and the industry gets a little shook up with fear and anxiety. In the media, BDSM is usually linked to serial killers or politicians. I’m not sure which association I resent more.

The last to arrive was Mistress M. She strode in wearing platform stilettos and a waist-corset over tight, satin jeans. She carried a Prada purse in one hand and her Gucci glasses in the other. Blond, busty, and glamorous, M looks like how one would imagine a dominatrix. (A girl at my last reading told me that I look like an investment banker. How upsetting is that!?) M sat down, ordered a glass of Pinot, and smiled at the children. She then leaned forward and began talking porn.

M has started producing a series of BDSM and fetish pornography for online and DVD sales. “I’ve found all these young, hot models to fill in the roles. I just give them a script and ‘Action!’—they follow along. Actors are the ultimate slaves!”

M has a two-story apartment in my neighborhood. She is one of the few dominas who manage a live/work lifestyle. She lives with her dog in the upstairs portion of her apartment that looks like a Pottery Barn catalog. Down a black-iron, spiral staircase is her dungeon and porn office. Often between or after sessions, we meet up for coffee at the local bookshop. This past Valentine’s Day, both of us had been freshly made single and I had bought her a copy of Calvin Trillan’s About Alice (the most romantic love story). She bought me The Diva’s Handbook of Style. Clearly the message was addressed to the old, worn combat boots that I still wear. I save the Gucci’s and Louboutains for parties and sessions, and even then, I slip out of my heels once the slave is blindfolded. I love wearing stilettos, but when I am rigging hard-core bondage and/or pounding a heavy, leather flogger against my slave’s body, I want my feet on the ground.

M told us about the “Behind the Scenes” of porn making. She eyed the little girls and stated that she felt maternal towards the young, female porn stars who want to grow up to be dominatrices. She explained that it is incredibly hard to find male-slave actors who will show their faces on camera and asked us if we know any willing participants. The rest of us shook our heads. Discretion is an honored element in the BDSM industry. I can’t imagine even my Hollywood actor/client wanting credits on a porn flick. M’s descriptions of the behind-the-scenes spoofs of porn shoots have me imagining a BDSM circus of bright camera spot-lights and loud, animal-like noises contrived to sound like painful moans. “Yeah, it’s bizarre, but it’s fun. I like being a producer and director. I not only tell one person what to do, I tell numerous people what to do.”

F described her life in the suburbs with her husband and kids. Her lifestyle is split into two compartments: her conservative home life and her kinky business. When she went into the difficulties of switching nannies, I must have stared at her blankly. But then she talked about the difficulties of socializing with the neighbors. “I can’t validate my success when I am at a regular dinner party or family gathering. Of course I must keep my business away from the little ones but it’s the housewives who are so nosy.” I understood completely. Neighbors in New York City respect and demand privacy. It’s the superintendents who raise their eyebrows.

T doted on Carla and told us about all the glowing achievements of childhood. “Carla’s first this, Carla’s first that.” I appreciated it all, especially since I’ve known T for a long time and have seen her evolve from a party-girl who co-hosted New York’s infamous Motherfucker parties to a sober but spunky, responsible mother. She overrode her earlier complaint regarding clients to praise a few devoted slaves who have been with her for years. “Oh yeah, Pussy-Power (her slave’s appointed name) is fantastic. Whenever I session with him, he picks up diapers for me. He’s a fairy-god-slave.”

I talked about my own behind-the-scenes details. In my personal life, I was cramming for the GRE’s, letting go of a wildfire marriage, and athletically training on my racing bike. I also talked about behavior modification techniques I use on my contracted slaves. The ladies nodded in understanding. At this table, we are completely accepted. It’s a unique life we live, a hard career to create, and we have to keep our individual courage intact to do it every day. Our work is misinterpreted, underappreciated, taboo, and taken for granted. It is good to come together.

The luncheon wound down. Little Carla abandoned sticker play and began rummaging through T’s purse/diaper bag. She pulled out a box of tampons and began tossing them around like party favors. “Oh good,” I said, catching one of the pink, cellophane-wrapped cylinders. “I need one.”

M looked around with one in her hand also. “Oh god, are we all on the same cycle?!” she asked, and it was obvious; it was implicit in all that we share.

Up Next: The slaves of my life. They take my whip, lick my shoes, and pay my bills. But I ask for so much more—I ask them to trust me and to be proud of themselves. An intimate look into BDSM connections from the bottom up.


A month ago, X and I had a meeting at a local café to arrange the details of the abduction scene. Ever since he had met me for our first session, X had conveyed his fantasy of being seduced and taken captive for an extended period of time. X is a bondage enthusiast; he can take my ultimate bondage gear. He is also a well-versed masochist, enjoyable for various kinds of pain, from electrical shock to standard corporal punishment. I have played with him over a dozen times and know his body well—its reactions and limits and desires. I enjoy taking control of his thoughts through his body because, from the effusive emails he sends after our sessions, I know that he appreciates my careful details. He knows when each strap is locked down right. He remembers what shoes I wear when his face is to the ground. He remembers my every rule to the letter and follows them. He only crosses the “secondary rules,” such as not using my full title and name when addressing me, when he yearns for instant punishment. He knows that he is not to cross the primary rules, such as no touching and no sexual advances, for the fear of dismissal. But this time, the rules have changed.

In seduction mode, I expect him to make advances. In captive role, I expect him to fight back and protest. I am ready.

At the café, X gave me a large deposit on the session. He trusts me completely, but I don’t like to take the full tribute until the session has been executed. We set up a different set of primary rules, still maintaining physical respect and hard limits.

We set up four dates during which he was instructed to arrive at the predetermined bar at 11pm and have three drinks until 1am. If I didn’t arrive, he could leave (that way he would never really be sure which date he would be abducted). It could have been the first date night. But I arrive on the third. He has already come to this same bar and drank a lonely two nights, waiting for his seductress to carry him away. If I hadn’t arrived, it would have been a sure bet that I’d arrive on the fourth night. I don’t like to give that confidence. I saw from the look in his face, though, that he knows me better than I think he does. He knows I don’t like to be a sure bet and so expected me tonight. Damnit.

I have to get even.

I order a drink and see X out of the corner of my eye begin his approach–not an easy task through the obstacle course of people. The beginning of our script is set that he should offer me a drink. He comes close and I slide through the crowd to the women’s restroom. Let him wait. Hunt. Chase.

After a few minutes of fixing my hair and renewing a decision, I come out of the bathroom, walk with determination past X, brush my arm against him, and walk out. I’ll see him the fourth night. Let this be a tease.

The fourth date night is set another week away. There is supposed to be no contact between us during this period, but he sends me an email of only two words: “You’re evil.” I can’t help but laugh and clap my hands with giddiness.

Fourth night. Same time. Same place. Same people, it would seem. This time, X makes his way to me right away. Determined. We pretend to meet for the first time, exchanging names. “I think that I saw you here a few nights ago,” X says. I smile at him coyly and brush a piece of my hair back from my face as if I were about to turn away.

He asks me if he can buy me a drink.

“No,” I say. “But I’ll buy you one.” I look at his glass full of whiskey. It’s probably something smooth and expensive. I buy him a Jack Daniels and take his drink as my own. He raises his eyebrow in mock surprise at my bold move.

“You’re a very intriguing woman,” X says. I almost laugh. His acting reminds me of a TV detective. Dialogue in role play can be so silly. But, come to think of it, bar dialogue is usually pretty silly. “I’d like to find out more about you.” I’m biting my tongue to keep from spitting whisky.

We banter through a few minutes more of Oscar-winning acting, and then we’re in a taxi, heading back to my studio. The lights of the West Side highway are racing by the windows as I am sitting close, then closer to X. He reaches to put his hand on my neck, to lean over to kiss me, but it’s slow and hesitant. I grab his wrist with my small hand and grip my sharpened fingernails in. “Not here, but later, I promise.” I look into his eyes and smile the promise. He’s mine from midnight to midnight. There’s plenty of time left.

I take on about three overnight sessions per month and extended days (two to three) about once every three months. For an overnight session that starts at 6-7 pm and ends the next morning by 10 am, the fee is $1500- 2000. The client (and I) get about six hours of sleep. For X’s sort of kidnapping scene, the fee goes up due to the involvement and preparation. During the 24 hours of session, I will get a minimum of four hours sleep. He will get none.

I build one torture scene into another. From suspending him upside down and dunking his head in cold water, to having him crawl from one end of my studio to the other with weights attached to his nipples and genitals, to immobilizing him into a kneeling position on a sheet of gravel. While I take my two hours of sleep, he is hooked up to an electrical shock program that pulses into his rectum. There is more, but a Domina must keep some secrets.

Personal play with abduction can be similar, but not at all set up. I actually enjoy the thrill of abducting a total stranger/potential lover for a whole evening. One of my full 24-hour “kidnap” scenes happened a few years ago in Amsterdam (of course). It was a crisp, spring night and I was visiting the Netherlands with my friend, Marie, a busty, blonde Dominatrix from London. We each had slaves traveling with us, but we left them on their own for the night to prowl a city disco. (Well, on their own with explicit commands. I demanded that my slave visit a local Dominatrix for a caning session. I wanted to see marks as evidence the next morning).

After hours of mad dancing and several flutes of champagne, I turned around to see a beautiful man standing a little too close to me from behind. He smiled and his blue eyes opened my desires. He moved even closer and danced his hips close to mine. He danced with a smooth, sexy rhythm. He touched me lightly on my waist with his fingertips. My face, close to his chest, I could discern large-gauged, nipple rings under his linen shirt. Piercings. Yum.

He spoke little English and I speak absolutely no Dutch. In the midst of loud, electronic music, it took multiple attempts of charades and articulate screaming to express our names to one another, never mind trying suave dialogue. Finally, I pulled him to the bar and retrieved a pen from the bartender to scrawl my name down. He nodded and wrote, “Arjen.” Yeah, I could have guessed that, right. The truth is that my full name is not any more common than his. Relieved that the name ordeal was over, we then stared at each other with frustration because there was no way we could communicate in the flashing lights and pumping music. It would have been sensible to move back into the non-verbal language of dance. But I wanted to play. I wanted to pull on those nipple rings.

“Come with me,” I shouted, pointing to him and then to me and then to the exit.

“Okay,” Arjen said. That was the extent of the seduction.

I retrieved Marie. Arjen consulted his friends, who patted him on his back as he pulled on his leather coat with a grin to follow me out. I smiled the bigger smile, though, being so glad for the ample amount of rope and duct tape that I had stowed in my luggage.

Hunt and capture. Both of these cases were consensual. The former session, though, comprised of planned details, a stun gun, and a sturdy sense of humor. I had prepped the studio with equipment ready at the door to lock X into heavy metal. I kept X in chains or in the cage for the entire time. I bound Arjen in rope and duct tape after we had shed our clothes. Even while I whipped his chest with a short rubber cat, I seduced with my body language and eyes. I still kept him safe. I kept him captive by simply telling him that he was not allowed to leave the room. In the morning, I stepped out to retrieve coffee and have breakfast with my friends. Arjen was hogtied by the bed, the “Do Not Disturb” sign was on the door handle. If he had asked to leave, given an excuse of a job or fear, I would have let him go. X could have broken into tears, screamed, shouted bloody murder and I wouldn’t have him go unless I heard the word, “Mercy.” I knew him too well.

I love kidnapping. As a break from my daily routine and duties as a Domina, it’s a great scene to plan, as well as a great spontaneous night adventure. In my own seduction scenarios, my sadistic sensual-sexual needs are satiated. In my professional sessions, I make sure the captive feels they are completely used. At the same time, my sadistic psychosexual needs are satiated. For X’s case, he gets his money’s worth because it is a fantasy he wants to happen, a fantasy unlikely to happen if he leaves it to chance. After all, odds are unlikely you’ll visit a bar and have a capable, trustworthy Domina choose you to kidnap for the eve.

Arjen still calls me once in while. But there is really not much else to say that we didn’t cover at the club.

“Hello. My name is Y. I am taking you.”

—-

p.s. Once in a blue moon, a lover comes along who is a match for both the sadistic-sexual and the psycho-sadistic needs. I am excitedly planning a very personal, three-day abduction scene. I may write about it or I may not…stay tuned.

Up Next: The dominatrix power lunch.


Dinner conversation was easy and joyous. We talked about the movies we had seen (loved The History Boys) and books we were reading. I didn’t mention The Pleasure’s All Mine, a memoir I had just finished by Joan Kelly, a professional submissive I knew from the BDSM industry. Instead, I talked about the boxing book by Joyce Carol Oates that I’ve been intrigued with as of late. (Interesting how ritualized violence as sport is so much more accepted than ritualized violence as sex).

My family knows a little about my lifestyle. I see my brother and mother often and try to not flat-out lie about what is going on in my life. However, there is much left unsaid. I have friends in the profession who are completely out to their families. I envy that; but I still struggle with the idea of exposing my mother to something that could scare and/or hurt her. I had tried to discuss BDSM with her years ago. I wanted to explain how I had shifted from being extremely self-destructive and abusive to leading an obviously saner and happier life. I told her that I had connected others who felt the same need for pain by ritualizing the actions. I am not sure what she took away from that conversation, but she concluded with, “As long as you’re not hurting yourself anymore” and urged me to eat more scallion dumplings.

I don’t know what the family knows or doesn’t know about my profession. They are all highly educated, intelligent individuals who admit to using Google to dig dirt on their colleagues. The “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is employed. But silence does not necessarily create distance in this case. When my mother hands me the huong-bau, the Chinese holiday gift, and says, “I love you,” I know she means all of me, even the Domina she doesn’t know. We ended the Chinese New Year eve by playing Ma-Jong, shifting stones between us in a circle, conjuring the four elements and the four dragon spirits with laughter and game.

It is Sunday evening and I am on the 6 o’clock train from mall-town, New Jersey heading back to Manhattan. When I get to Penn Station, I will take the subway to my BDSM studio instead of returning to my apartment. There I will find a man padlocked in my cage, wearing a leather head harness with blindfold and mouth-piece buckled into place. His ankles are locked and chained to the bars, his wrists in heavy, German-made hand-cuffs. The hard surface of the cage and the steel bars are cool against his skin. Cold and solid. Even as I write this diary, I excite (and reassure) myself by reaching into my purse every so often to finger the keys. Just touching them is like pushing directly against my clit for a moment. Though I am not with him yet, I am completely aware of my lover. I cannot wait to fuck him.

In my studio there is an altar with Quan Yin, the Boddhivista of Mercy, holding sanctuary. Flowers, oranges, and chocolates are offered in small dishes with candles. My knife, blood still on the blade, is wrapped in a red, silk scarf and placed in a mother-of-pearl bowl. The blood on the knife will be washed away on the fifteenth day, the full moon, of the Chinese New Year.

Since childhood, I have been surrounded and familiar with the powers of ritual and the rituals of power. When I began training as a Dominatrix, I felt a great surge in my ability to express and contain the combination of physical, mental, and spiritual energies. There was more I wanted from the work than the erotic and the taboo. I wanted to cause pain, not only to have it be felt, but to transcend it. I wanted to peel back the scars to let healing begin and transformation progress. And I knew that to be a guide to such intensity, I first had to peel my own skin back.

After seven months of learning the ropes at the Shadows, I graduated my sorority house of BDSM by “going independent.” I now controlled my own business. I purchased a cell phone and set up a web site. I focused my skills of attention to detail and disciplined learning on screening clients, stacking appointments, and meeting each individual with gusto and integrity. The other perks to being independent were the avoidance of moody catfights when the alpha-ladies were all co-menstrual and lashing verbal whips. There were also no more wasted days of waiting around for a session and going home at the end in the negative. However, I did miss the camaraderie. Many of those slow days were spent bonding with the women through serious discussions; trying out various dungeon implements on one another; and then breaking out into giddy, latex-lube wrestling. (I think it’s a universal, house-Dom experience that all the kinkiest moments happen without clients. Sorry fellas, you just can’t Mastercard girl fun).

Claiming independence gave me an even greater sense of pride in my work. I truly felt that I understood each person who came to me. Why they needed to kneel and why they craved to be hurt. I had a trunk full of handwritten journals that dated back to eighth grade, all expressing hurt, anger, and a deep, deep relationship to pain. Throughout my childhood, I was in the midst of a turbulent family. Pain translated to attention, to intimacy, and to love. I did not wish to stagnate on regressive pain and loathed the idea of reenacting memories of abuse. I craved pain as a celebration of what my body could feel, not as punishment. I contacted Madame Cleo DuBois and made an appointment to be beaten.

Madame Cleo Dubois is a professional Dominatrix and founder of the Academy of the S&M Arts. She and her partner, Fakir Musafar, are icons in the worldwide leather community. Their lives and work have shaped a tangent BDSM lifestyle that connects with spirituality in reference to Eastern and American Indian practices of rites of passage. That is how one sunny afternoon, I found myself with flesh hooks (basically the same three-inch, 8 gauge, fishing hooks that are used to catch sharks), pierced through my chest and along my shoulder blades, tied and pulled from a tree. I was delirious, sweating lava and communing with the passion, the pain, and the aliveness of my own blood. With a thin, silver spear shoved through one cheek and exiting out the other, I really couldn’t say much to anyone else besides the spirits. Madame Cleo walked around me in her twinkling, purple skirt, ringing Buddhist chimes on her fingers, and carrying a pot of burning sage. She was guardian to the sacred circle as I wrestled with my angels and demons. The skin on my back burned from the whips that she had welted me with earlier. My nipples still ached from the clamps and weights that had tested my endurance. But the flesh hooks now dug in deep below the fascia and pulled a searing energy out of the openings they made. They tapped into hidden fear and anger and confusion and made one thing clear. I was alive. Powerfully and beautifully alive.

I found affirmation to my pain and to my acceptance and guidance of others’ pain that was and is resolute. I confronted all the years of shame and depression that pain had led me through: the nights of violent and dangerous sex; the self-inflicted abuse of blades, drugs, demonic characters; and the terrified child who didn’t know how to stop the pain, couldn’t stop it, and was victim to it. I faced all those things and embraced them as my past. That same pain would serve as knowledge. I understood my need for pain, where it came from, and I chose to take my experience to help others.

Now, the paradox. The crazed fury of pain was fantastic, but it was not the answer to my journey. The answer was “Mercy.” I was screaming in agony as the single tail lashed my back with red. My feet planted on the floor, I breathed in and gathered strength. The whipping was relentless. Madame Cleo is a sadist, like myself, and would not stop for the sake of my scream, not for the sake of the tears pouring down my cheeks and into my open mouth. But when I broke, “Mercy, please Madame.” She stopped. She stopped the whip. I had stopped her. And all the care of humanity was in that cease of pain.

I tell people now when they come to me, “You must say Mercy for both our sakes. I am a sadist and will keep pushing the pain beyond your limit. When you say Mercy, you learn to accept yourself. I give you mercy and I give mercy to myself. The cease proves to me that I am not your abuser, I am your guide.”

The train pulls into Penn Station where greenish, florescent lights blare over head. Passengers button their coats and pick up their bags, readying for the cold, winter city streets. I’ll walk through the hub of grimy corridors, transfer to the #1 subway train, and tunnel down to my studio, where it’s safe and warm inside. And he is waiting.

Hiring a kitchen staff was a nearly impossible task. There were no fine dining restaurants in the area and our advertising consisted solely of a laminated banner hung sloppily in front of the unfinished restaurant. Unsurprisingly, most of our applicants consisted of cooks already employed at the nearby Red Lobster and Olive Garden. Not a single one had any experience in high-end dining or Asian cuisine. Ryan (our executive chef, and my friend from the Culinary Institute of America, as you’ll no doubt remember from our last installment) insisted that any potential employees be able to speak English—an arbitrary and totally absurd demand in an industry dominated by Latin American immigrants; right off the bat this ruled out 80 to 90 percent of our candidates.

The matter was further complicated by the owner’s vague promises that “Chinese guys,” meaning Chinese immigrants like the owner himself, would staff half of the kitchen. They were to do the more “traditional” Asian dishes, the inescapable shrimp with garlic sauce and all its relatives, while Brandon and I handled the fusion ones. A week before the restaurant was to open there was no sign of any of them.

Things got progressively crazier. Days before our opening the restaurant had no pots, pans, plates, or silverware. Other than the yet to appear Chinese guys, our kitchen staff consisted of Brandon, one young woman and myself. Our sushi chef who was to work with Suzanne—another friend of mine from the C.I.A.—was suspiciously stuck in Italy. Our pastry chef was Ryan’s wife, Kelly, who had no pastry experience or training, and was incapable of producing even the most basic desserts. Our dishwasher didn’t work. That mattered less than the fact that we didn’t have any dishwashers to man it.

In the middle of this mess, the owners decided to try and open the restaurant two days earlier than planned.

—

It is important to step back and realize just how insane this whole scene was. It’s true that in some respects restaurants are supposed to be frenzied, hectic places. Cooking is by its very nature unpredictable, sure. But while life in any kitchen is chaotic, in a good kitchen it is a controlled chaos where, despite pandemonium, the line holds. Our line wasn’t holding; it couldn’t, it didn’t even exist.

Amid this turmoil, Brandon and I formed the same sort of friendship I imagine people form on nose diving airplanes or iceberg-bound ships. We spent nearly every waking minute of our lives together, especially since our work week was now easily more than 100 hours.

Ryan always viewed Brandon with suspicion. During a phone call when I was still in New York, Ryan described him as “a South Philadelphia gangster-type.” I shuddered; figuring my future partner to be impudent and hotheaded, the jersey-wearing type who spent his free time cruising in a souped-up import, watching Rocky and stuffing his face with cheesesteaks and Newport cigarettes.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Brandon was more pensive than brash, the kind of guy who mixed NPR with arty hip-hop on his morning commute. His voice was quiet and he spoke slowly, as if contemplating each word. And he wasn’t from South Philadelphia, but from the city’s middle-class northeast.

Brandon was also hilarious, and the two of us spent a good bit of time laughing at the absurdity of our situation.

Picking through our bare stack of resumes, we managed to put together the semblance of a kitchen staff. We didn’t have half the people we needed to open the restaurant, but with three days to go we were desperate. In our desperation, we obviously weren’t considering human resource issues like employment diversity, but by coincidence we ended up with a staff that included four African-Americans. This wasn’t a conscious move, and not something we even noticed until much later.

A day or two after this hiring the restaurant held what can only be described as a pitiful attempt at an employee orientation. Led by Scott, a morbidly obese, crew-cut food salesman—the kind of guy who had rolls of fat on the back of his head—who was a friend of our bumbling, inexperienced GM, the orientation was filled with bullshit talk about fine dining and excellent service. It all flew way over the heads of our service staff, most of whom seemed bemused and lost, especially when the conversation turned towards food.

The highlight of the kitchen orientation was the long-awaited appearance of the “Chinese guys,” none of whom spoke more than a word or two of English, and all of whom had hilariously anglicized names: Sam, Paul, Kenny, Sean, and Vincent. With 48 hours to go before the restaurant’s official opening, it became clear that neither Ryan, Brandon nor myself could communicate with what was now the majority of our cooks. Not that communication would have really accomplished much-–-it was soon clear that the Chinese guys had no intention to follow our direction, the menu or any culinary trend more recent than, say, 1975.

Seeing that the Chinese guys were content to spend hours constructing outdated garnishes like tomato roses (long, inedible ribbons of tomato skin rolled into the shape of a rose), and dreaming up hideous culinary abominations (fried lobster in sweet strawberry sauce), Brandon and I realized that night we were going to have to rely almost totally on our meager hires.

Upon arriving at the restaurant the next morning, Brandon was told that he had to fire all of the African-American cooks and dishwashers we had hired. Of course, the owner didn’t phrase it exactly that way, but when we examined the list of the people Brandon was instructed to get rid of they all had one thing in common: their skin color.

Ryan denied the firing was about race. According to him the owners were upset that some of our hires showed up in shorts and sports jerseys—a sign of “unprofessionalism,” in his words. Even Ryan struggled while making these clearly nonsensical excuses; during our conversation he began to sweat profusely, his brow furrowed and he kept shooting Brandon and I those “why are you making me go through this” sort of looks.

Brandon refused to do the dirty work and someone else (we suspected Ryan or the GM) did the actual firing. Suzanne quit the moment she heard about the incident. I myself was ready to quit—and call the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on my way out the door (driving home from work, I called one friend to have him look up the number for me.) But I didn’t. I wanted to, what I thought happened disgusted me, but I had rent and loans to pay, and I was stuck in Wilmington, Delaware, with nowhere else to go. I resolved, though, that when I could get out, I would.

Above and beyond the obvious ethical issues, the firing and Suzanne’s departure presented a major problem. With hours to go before the restaurant’s opening, we had no one to cook the food. Unbelievably, the owners decided to open as scheduled.

So we did.

Up Next: Bad to Worse.


It’s difficult to explain, as most things that matter seem to be. I found myself on the phone with my boyfriend the day after my two-day hospital rotation (clinicals) offering a rambling, yet somehow stilted, explanation of working in the BAMC Burn Unit - one of the two best in the country possibly in the world, and a thriving center for burn research. He was surprisingly polite and a good listener, even though reception in the barracks was awful and he was busy. My boyfriend is not the sort to find talking better than working; Considering that it was his final week of school of a rather strange sophomore year, I realize that he must have understood how important it was to me for him to listen to me on the phone for as long as he did.

I would be lying to you if I said burn patients are pleasant people, but it’s fairly obvious why many aren’t: they’re burnt. Plus, they smell pretty bad and are in so much pain that the amount of drugs required to alleviate or relieve their pain leaves many in a constant coma-like state. Nobody except people who are already familiar with their problems wants to look at them, sometimes not even family members.

The only way for most people to survive a major burn is to be tortured in the form of a process called debridement. Here, dead tissue is, in the earlier stages, aggressively removed with brushes, gauze pads, even scissors and knives in order to prevent necrotic (dead) tissue from causing life-threatening infections. Even a simple dressing change - not simple at all and often taking hours - is a form of debridement, as the dressings often pull dead tissue away with them.

My introduction to severely burned patients was when my instructor told me to sit in the Rehabilitation Center. I was surprised at how quickly I got used to looking at people whose healed wounds have contracted to the point that many of their features are no longer recognizable, and who are very frequently missing fingers and parts of arms and legs. A frequent burn deformity was what I liked to think of as “the Claw” - fingers had melted together during the initial injury and were still in the process of being separated, even if it would only help cosmetically. It was also common for the patient to experience difficulty bending elbows or fingers because of severe contracture of the scar tissue - think of it as taking your elbow, bending it and bunching up all the skin on the inside of your elbow. Wouldn’t it be more difficult to straighten your arm? This is because less tissue is available to stretch and adapt. I’d watch physical therapists sit beside the patient and use what appeared to be small buffers with cream or gel on these contractures. I’m still not sure how this helped.

Most of the patients in the BAMC Burn Ward had things far more amazing (and possibly traumatic) done to them than simple debridement. I talked to many patients who had undergone more than 10 surgeries; some have had more than 30, and some 50 due to their extensive, unforgiving injuries.

There was one particularly determined Marine in the ward who had been burned over about 98 percent of his body (I believe the only parts of his body that went unscathed were the very top of his head and possibly his genitals); he had been on the brink of death two or three times since his admission to the ward 15 months prior. He was also a prime example of how a person’s psychological state can affect healing. A nurse told me how once, earlier in his stay, she had taken him out on a walk around their floor of the hospital. The Marine noted a beautiful woman looking out of one of the windows and looked up at the nurse. She knew he wanted to be near her, and his comforts in life were so few she felt there was no way it could hurt to oblige him. She pushed his wheelchair over near the window, maybe five or six feet away from the woman, and walked away to give him some personal space. When the young woman looked over and noticed the Marine, she paused for a moment before she let out an ear-piercing screech and ran away.

I remember the nurse’s face when she got to that part of the story. She conceded that she had been more than a little indignant. “I wanted to hunt her down and slap her in the face,” she confided. “I couldn’t believe that a person could be so cold, especially to somebody as awesome as him. Sometimes I forget how people who aren’t familiar with burn patients react to something so visually traumatic.” She went on to tell me that the Marine had been so hurt by the young woman’s harsh dismissal that he cried intermittently for days, and his previously remarkable recovery declined to the point that he was near death. She said a lot of encouragement was required on the part of the staff - and anyone else who came in contact with him - to bring him back to an emotional state where he could continue his intensely difficult recovery. Even after that, his recovery was no walk in the park.

The Marine underwent numerous surgeries and experimental procedures (BAMC is a burn research center in addition to a ward). One of the most interesting (and difficult) parts of his rehab was a skin repopulation procedure. Cultures of viable skin were made to grow new skin cells. Then, with the Marine suspended a few inches from his bed, the cells were painted over his freshly debrided skin. Remarkably, about 33 percent of these skin cells took - which may not sound like much, but it’s amazing when 98 percent of your skin has been all but destroyed.

I’m self-aware enough to know that I didn’t enjoy working in the Burn Treatment Clinic or visiting the Burn ICU because I love to help people. It’s not that I don’t like to help people, and I think anybody would feel for the patients, what with all they are going through and how much patience they have for the insidiously painful things you are doing to them. For me, the Burn Unit was about the “I can do this” challenge. It’s invigorating. You have the feeling that you are finally doing something. It is not the upper limit of what I want to do with my life, of course - I have newfound respect for nurses and Burn Techs and the like, but I still can’t help to think I can do more than that.

My interests lie in dermatology and cosmetic/reconstructive surgery. I’m not sure which I’m more interested in. Plastic surgery is more glamorous and probably pays more, but it also requires about five more years of school as well as being nice to a bunch of mother-daughter idiots who feel the best way to bond is to get an impromptu nose job. Dermatology sounds a little less exciting, but only slightly, as I’m fairly morbid and skin does all kinds of weird shit, not to mention the family history of the rare skin disorder Darier’s Disease. I know for sure that no matter which route I take, I’ll eventually want my own practice. I loved the hospital, but I also have this (possibly romanticized) idea of what it would be like to have my own my own office, my own small-but-trustworthy staff. I’d try to hire people who have strong personalities, as it seems they connect better with patients.

Of course, that’s not considering the thousands of opportunities to fail along the way. Medical school is hard, it’s expensive. The Army is difficult but inexpensive; they’ll pay for medical school if you meet certain criteria, but then you (supposedly) owe them two years for every year of schooling they paid for. Granted, you won’t go into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt like your friends, but you’ll also have to hold off on that private practice for a long time to come.

The time I spent at BAMC was a much-needed refresher from four long, hard, fairly unrewarding months of Advanced Individual Training (AIT). My experiences assisting medical professionals and performing minor procedures in the clinical setting gave me a good feeling about my desire to pursue a medical career. It’s too bad that my experience at Fort Benning sort of shat all over that a lot of the time. But most people in the Army understand how that works.

Up Next: Rock of the Marne