Reader Mailbag

      It’s Saturday night, so I’m going to take the easy way out and answer a request from the mailbag:


“I love stories about the wackiness of your co-workers. Mental illness, workplace dysfunction, drug abuse, stupidity! I love it all. I guess when I did a lot of scenes at dungeons, I didn’t want to admit how little I knew about these women. Even when I became someone’s regular, it was only four hours a month together in a highly controlled setting. In my mind they had perfect lives — creative outside work (music or art), great sex, incredible parties. It was part of my fantasy. “
  
      My nicknames for the Studio were “Arkham Asylum” and “Bellvue.”  The organizational culture of the Studio was highly dysfunctional (not all dungeons are like that–the other two I worked at were friendlier and pleasant).  The dommes were a constantly-revolving cast of colorful characters, the likes of which I have never met anywhere else.  The personalities were all over the map, but what we all had in common is a non-conformist mindset and a willingness to take risks.  The Studio was a rogues’ gallery of misfits, adventurers, free spirits, and grifters, but I never met a single fucking sheep there.  

       All of these things happened in dungeons during my tenure:

      A domme was using coke with a client at 2 AM.   She got angry and smashed his Rolex watch.  There was a huge blowup about it with the manager, but eventually, the client went home and ate the loss.  I mean, what was he going to do?  Call the police and admit to using coke in a dungeon in the middle of the night?  By the way, the domme was not fired.

        Four assaults.  To be fair, one woman instigated three of them.  She punched one domme in the eye, followed another girl into the supply closet and throttled her there, and slapped a third.  She got the boot after the third assault, which is good, because she was traumatizing the clients.  She is still practicing. 

        One domme was in the New York Post for throwing a puppy out of the window of a guy’s apartment (the dog survived).  

        One domme I know went on a 6-hour session with a client and flipped her shit in a bathroom at The Yale Club.  She ripped the toilet lid off of the toilet, and was forcibly ejected for the premises.  The client tried to stick Studio management with the repair bill.  NOPE.  (I’m inclined to believe that the client must have done something to her, but who knows?)

           One woman married three different guys, each one in a different country, and none of them knew about each other.   Women run around and cheat, of course, but I’ve never heard of one committing bigamy (whatever the female equivalent is).  Very weird.

          One domme was a kleptomaniac who was blacklisted from every store in a 3-block radius.  

           One had a SWAT team raid her house.  We saw the television footage. 

            Some bitch stole an entire rotisserie chicken out of the fridge.  She took the whole thing.  I’d just bought it from Whole Foods because I was going to a potluck dinner after work.  It was probably still warm when she took it.  Who steals a chicken?

          Those are the incidences I can think of off the top of my head.  I wondered if it would be tacky or disloyal of me to blog about these things, but hell: it’s already public knowledge.

          I would also like to state that I was not close to any of these women.  I didn’t even know their real names until I read about them in the paper.   

              Am still too apprehensive to post the rest of the New York trip.  I think it might look weird to outsiders.  

        In the meantime, here’s an installment of Reader Mailbag!   

   “Why did you decide to start working in the Biz?  How did you get started?”
                                                    –Random Internet Stranger

      Translation: “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

      Well, I decided to do it for the same reason practically everyone else goes to work: I needed the money. 

      I needed it badly.

      And I was desperate.

       My story is not unique.  I have seen many women–many women–come into the Biz scared to death, on food stamps, living in temporary housing, or with a looming appointment in Housing Court, or because they were illegal or quasi-legal immigrants without the ID to get hired in industries in which they were experienced.  Some had criminal records which made it hard to find a “normal” job.  
      

      In my case, I’d just left my psycho Ex, John, and moved into an apartment where my name wasn’t on any of the bills, so that he wouldn’t be able to find me.  The cost of the move (first and last months’ rent, plus hiring movers) and the lawyer’s fees involved for taking him to court for stalking and harassment left me with about $300 in the bank. 

       It was also May.  I was employed by my University as a research assistant, but the contract for my job ended with the Spring semester.  I typically relied on my savings and freelance work to get me through the summer until school/work started again, but in between class and work, final exams, court, and the stress of avoiding John, I hadn’t been able to secure summer employment.

       I was in trouble, and I was vulnerable.  The only people I knew in the Tri-State area were associated with my school.  My family was thousands of miles away and didn’t have the means to help me even if I asked them to (which I hadn’t).  In fact, I had yet to terminate my relationship with my degenerate father, who was still calling me for money.

      With unemployment looming, I applied to various jobs, most of them of the “fast cash” variety: restaurant industry, tutoring, pay-per-word writing gigs.  I prepared myself to sell my jewelry. 

        And then I saw an ad in the back of The New York Press, a doomed little alternative-weekly mag.  It was sandwiched between ads for Asian massage places, gay hookup chat lines, head shops, and the like (you know, the ads everyone reads furtively on the subway).  

         “Attractive women wanted for house of domination in Manhattan.  Fetish, fantasy, and roleplay only.  No sex.  Experience preferred but not necessary.”

          I thought about it.  I cut the ad out and put it into my purse.  And after a few days…I called. 

         “Have you ever worked in this industry before?” asked the receptionist.

         “No, but I’ve done BDSM for years in my private life.  I know what it is.  I have gear.”

           She asked me to describe myself.  I started stammering my professional qualifications.  My credentials.  Ha!  Ha! 

           She started laughing and then cut me off: “No, what do you look like?” 

          Tall, slender, blue eyes, reddish-blonde hair.  Good face.  Good skin.   No tattoos. 

          She scheduled me for an interview with the boss the next day at 4 PM.

           (Note: sad but true: in every dungeon I’ve ever worked, white girls get preferential treatment in hiring.  Management wants to keep a few women of color on staff in order to have dommes for every fantasy…but just a few.  I’ve seen gorgeous, friendly black women come in for interviews and not get hired because the dungeon already had “enough black mistresses.”  It sucks.  The sex industry is really, really racist.)

         I rode the PATH train to Harold Square.  I wore a conservative black sleeveless sheath dress, stockings, and low heels.  Normally I’d wear office clothes to a job interview, but what do you wear to interview at a dungeon?  Leather pants?

          The dungeon was very close to the Empire State Building.  I walked by the door twice, looking for it.  There was no sign, of course.  Just a glass door with number decals.

            I pushed the button and announced myself, and then she buzzed me up.

         I took the elevator up, and when the door opened, I stood in front of a huge metal door with DANGER stenciled on it, and a big BEWARE OF DOG sign.  The door had a tiny window.  The glass was foggy and had chicken wire through it.

        The door swung open and I was greeted by the receptionist who’d spoken to me on the telephone.  I can’t remember her name now, but I remember her face and her voice.  African-American, mid-30s, pretty, with short hair.  She was very energetic and she was funny.  Later, I learned that she’d been working the phones at massage parlors and escort agencies for years, and also as a phone sex operator when phone sex lines were popular. 

         She asked me if I needed to use the bathroom.  Then she put me in a room to wait for the manager.

          It was a little room with a purple vinyl loveseat and mirrors all over two of the walls.  The lighting was dim.  There was a dresser with an ashtray and candles.  A fake silk plant in the corner.  And on the wall: a rack with paddles and cuffs and floggers.

        I could hear female voices and the sound of high heels on the wooden floors.  

         And then: the unmistakable sound of someone getting a spanking.

          Was I nervous? Yes.  A little bit.

          The manager came in.  He was wearing jeans and a button-down denim shirt.  He had long-ish, wavy sandy-brown hair and glasses.  Let’s call him…Paul.

          We made small talk, and then he explained what the dungeon was, what the work consisted of (more or less).  He told me that he was running a legal establishment and he didn’t want any problems with the cops.  He spoke easily and took notes on a yellow legal pad.  He looked at me over the top of his glasses.

            “Did you ever teach?” I asked him.

            Academics.  I always know when I’m speaking to one.  Yeah, Paul was an ex-academic.  Smart guy.  I liked Paul.  He was always straight with us, always fair, usually friendly.  

          The interview was pretty mundane.  It lasted maybe 20 minutes.  I don’t see any reason to reproduce it here.  

          One thing that he did tell me, though, which is relevant:

          “This job will change you, and it will change your sexuality.  You say you’ve done this at home.  This is not like what you do at home.  Sex does not look like what you think it does.  This job will change you.  I tell everyone that.   I’m honest.  I can meet the eyes of every girl I’ve hired in this place if I run into her on the street, because I’m honest.”

             I had no fucking idea what he was talking about then…but now, I understand.  

             He hired me on the spot and told me to come back the next day.  I would be trained by sitting in on sessions and watching the experienced dommes work.  There was no hourly wage, no benefits.  The mistresses were paid in cash at the end of the shift. 

            That’s enough for now. 

      

      Sex work is not easy money.  It is instant money.

       “So….who’s the creepiest client you’ve ever met?  What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever been asked to do?”
                           —Voyeuristic Vanilla Creep Gawking at My Blog

        Your question suggests that you may lack a little worldly perspective and empathy, Sir.  It is completely normal to be fascinated by people and sexual practices you find “weird,” but it’s not very nice to objectify anyone to their face like that.  I write this blog mostly as a therapeutic exercise and a vehicle for self-expression.  I find it flattering if any reader finds the content herein entertaining or titillating (though God knows, in my mind, the number of truly “sexy” posts is less than 5%), but I’m not here to be your dancing little hoe-monkey.  If you want wank-fodder on demand, go to a real sex blog or literotica.  Or pay me. 

          But, I’m answering the question anyway, because it’s actually a GOOD question.

         The Attorney takes the cake because he is the best, most technically proficient sadist I have ever met, and he is also total sociopath.  You’d have to meet him to understand.  Actually, you’d have to session with him to understand, because he presents as normal and apparently functions just fine in everyday life–marriage (though I do wonder about that), education, career.  Read my last big post on him (“Ladies, Avoid This Man”) and keep an eye out for the bastinado box.  And his little jaunt to Little Rock.  My initial attraction to him is something I’m still untangling in therapy, because he’s terrified every other pro-sub I know who has met him, and I was ready to dump the Surgeon for him.

          The mental case (who, incidentally, works as a mental health care professional) who wants you to wear the shoes off his dead mother’s feet is #2.

          The freak (but UNDERSTANDABLE freak) who pretends to be the little sister that he and his dad molested in the basement is #3.  

          Suburban South Jersey Dad who gave me his daughter’s Confirmation dress to wear and took me on a little-girl father/daughter field day before beating the shit out of me in his study (see “The White Dress”) is #4.  I still can’t finish that story.  I was fresh off the fuckin boat when I met that guy, too.  

         That brings us to #5, whom I’ve never written about on this blog.  A new weirdo for the edification of my readers.  And you know I respect most of my clients, and do not like to call them weirdos, but this one really is a weirdo. 

            He is more than weird.  He is on the spectrum of being a serial killer.

          He calls himself a “hair fetishist,” but he’s much more than that.  I don’t think the label fits.  

           He hires three women at once: a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.  He positions the women in chairs, sitting down, as if they were sitting in chairs in a barber’s shop.  They are instructed not to move or speak in any way.

            Then he takes a huge bottle of cheap hair gel and pours it onto their hair and styles it into a very high ponytail.  

             Then he attaches cheap plastic barettes, like the type of barettes you can buy at the grocery store for little girls–the colorful kind with bows on them.

              THEN he applies makeup.  Ugly, cheap makeup with loud colors–like blue eyeshadow and hot pink blush and crap with glitter in it.

             Finally, he takes out a bunch of really cheap, garish plastic jewelry that looks like it came from the $.99 Store, such as dangly earrings with pink disco balls on the ends, or necklaces made up of plastic blocks.  The jewelry looks like parrot playtoys. 

           That’s it.  That’s the session.  In case you were wondering, I REFUSE to do it.  Not enough money on earth. 

            That level of obsession and objectification is one step away from murdering a girl and cutting her head off so that he can take it home with him and do it FOR REAL.  He gives of creepy-creepy-creepy vibes, too.  He does not pass for normal. 

            In my overall experience in this industry, what do the creepiest of the creeps–meaning, the most transparently sick-and-pushy-about-it–tend to have in common…?  I’d say: an obsession with their unresolved incest trauma histories, an inability to see women as human (should’ve been a huge red flag for the Surgeon, but, what can I say), and the sort of mental illness that turns hostile and outwards, whereas most perfectly decent mentally ill people focus on themselves and hurt the others around them only incidentally.