I also certainly didn’t need some fictional, unimaginatively-overbearing, “father figure” of a billionaire to push my sexually inexperienced and absurdly “virginal” buttons, either (like in a quasi-adult book that was currently making the rounds in my editorial office). I’m sure it held many great possibilities for women who were beginners to S&M. But even though I’d had yet to actually try it, I still already knew instinctively that I’d need so much more.
Hell, as far as sex went, I guess there really wasn’t that much about the subject itself that I didn’t already know. I certainly wasn’t a young woman trying to “sow my oats” or anything. I was twenty-nine going on ninety; having lived a life-time of pain already. As such, I had no misconceptions that men like those (made famous in sappy romance books and movies), really even existed. Nor would I want them if they did. You see, I needed a man who’d lived a life just as fucked up as I had. Otherwise, how would he ever know how to help me?
Regardless, I did realize up front that whomsoever I eventually settled upon, would almost certainly have a specific agenda of his own. In other words, as I repeatedly told myself; “He ain’t gonna do it for free”.
As I mulled over the different ways that I could go about selecting an appropriate “partner” over the next few days, I began to comprehend one certain truth: this wasn’t simply about seduction.
I knew how to do that, for sure, and I knew how to do it well. But I didn’t just need a man for a fling, or a “no-strings”, “no-frills” one-nighter. And since I was looking for a man to use and abuse me sexually, the last thing that he needed to worry about was seducing his way down my pants. As long as I found the right guy, it would pretty much be a sure thing.
None of that was the real problem. The most pertinent issue here was that my torment ran so hard and so deep, I’d literally need an expert. Someone to push my mind and body to the ends of the earth and beyond. But that would take time, energy, and dedication. And it would take at least as many “sessions” as I’d sacrificed to my most recent therapist (twenty-five, and counting). Which almost sounded like something akin to a “relationship”; if not in the typical sense of the word, at least in this current manifestation. So, how to find the right person?
It’s not as if you could sidle up to someone in a bar and say, “Hey, do you think you might be able to slap the stank outta my brain?” Or, “When’s the last time you managed to cure mental illness with your dick?”
But on the other hand, being coy would get me nowhere as well. I’d have to take some serious action. Even so, if I did, if I could actually make it happen and find the right person, could he somehow really save me from myself? I was beginning to believe that perhaps he actually could. What else did I have left, after all? This last psychologist was failing me, yet again, my recent drug consumption (illegal ones, not the ones the previous doctor had prescribed) was increasing, my alcohol use was doubling, and my cutting was getting more and more frequent. Yet, through it all, I was doing better at work than ever before.
My mask had truly been perfected. Ask anyone who knew me at the office, and he or she would say that I was one of the top editors in the industry; hell in heels, a bitch on a broomstick. I was feared in boardrooms, loved in workshops, and the authors I assisted adored me. The few men who were above me in the firm were scared as shit that I’d take their jobs. And they had every reason to fear. In my career, I was an unstoppable force. People respected the fuck out of me, and that was the most important thing that I could say about my present business capabilities.
No one knew about the booze or the coke, or the Valiums, or the Percocets. No one knew that I hadn’t been with a man whose name I’d actually known in more than two years. It wasn’t like I was a slut. I’d only screwed three men in that entire time. I just hadn’t wanted to know the first thing about them. All I’d cared about was that they didn’t have wedding bands, and they hadn’t minded wearing condoms. Still, for me, it had only been about being lonely. None of them had turned me on very much, and they sure as heck hadn’t made me come.
So, considering the fact that my bleak personal future wasn’t getting any brighter on its own, after my twenty-sixth, and final visit to the therapist, the second I got home I fixed myself a Jack and Coke and clicked open my slim-line laptop. Making detours back to the kitchen whenever I needed a fresh drink, I began my long series of searches.
I’d decided to do all my looking online. Bars were out as a place to find someone, because only losers went there; either men looking for quick, easy scores or men with no interest in a relationship with a chick as screwed up as me. I had to find someone who stood to get as much out of this as I did, otherwise, where was the draw? If having someone pleasure and punish me helped to relieve my pain, then surely being able to inflict that pleasure and punishment must do something for others as well. If not, why else would there be so many people who did it?
And apparently, there were thousands of people who called this lifestyle their own, right here in the heart of New York, because locally, the internet was littered with such ads; masters seeking women to dominate, subjugate, humiliate, you name it! There was even one website dedicated to men who liked to urinate on women. That one, when it popped up, shocked me so goddamn bad I snorted fizzy whiskey straight through my nose.
But as I roamed through page after page of debauchery, I realized that I didn’t really want to get into a site where this type of lifestyle was so much a normal part of a subscriber’s existence. I certainly didn’t want someone who did this kind of thing every single day with a brand new woman, but someone who wanted to stretch this experience out over time, with just one gal. Plus, as I realized before, if he had something personal to gain from it, too, he would be much more likely to do it right.
I think having someone who was in it purely for the sexual gratification (as all the men on these sites seemed to be), was just a little too seedy for me. And I also hoped that by finding someone who didn’t make this into just a “sex game”, someone who really wanted to use it to work through something painful or difficult in his life like I was, would make it that much more positive for the both of us in the long run.
Glancing through another webpage, though, I realized that I was the exception rather than the rule. The females placing ads on there seemed to be just as bad as the men. Crap. I certainly wasn’t after some sort of new “sexperience” like these women were. I wasn’t hitting my thirties with riotous fear, needing to recapture my youth through wild and vulgar sex acts. I was someone who simply needed to reclaim my freaking sanity. As such, I decided then and there that I wouldn’t use a BDSM site after all – a place that clearly waved nude and graphic banners advertising what they had to offer (like bartering flesh at a grocery store). Instead, I settled on a local site, figuring I’d use a regular service, for regular-old dating, and then simply allude to what I was looking for.
If the person reading it had half a brain, a modicum of intelligence, reasoning, and deduction, then he would be able to figure out what lay just beneath the surface of my words; decode my sentences, unravel my bio, discern the truth of who I was and what I was after. And that was the kind of person I was searching for. Someone smart, intuitive, adept, and like-minded. Someone who could sense the submissive intent inherent in my overtly average consonants, and the slight, masochistic need that ran like rivulets of blood beneath the vesicles of my vowels.
So, first of all, I decided that I needed to find a singles agency that only catered to Manhattanites; I truly had zero interest in a long-distance relationship. Second, I needed a site that did not compel you to post a picture of yourself in order to place your ad (I was well-known enough in the publishing world to not want a picture of myself floating around the internet at large for any competitor or co-worker to see and use to ridicule me). And third, I needed a site that seemed to have a certain bit of class. Again, I wasn’t just out for one, cheap, sexually gratifying encounter. I was out for something that was hopefully
going to change the fundamentals of me from now on.
That being the case, it was easier said than done. I spent hours simply trying to find a site that met all of my prerequisites. When I finally found one, I joined quickly, using an anonymous-style email address that I had just created that night. Then, face flaming with mortification, I wrote out my ad; carefully formulating my personal description in rather vague terms, all the while hoping it would eventually result in luring in exactly what I wanted.
I left no name, only my new email for responses, and I made it crystal-clear that a recent photo was necessary in order for me to read them. Not because I was particularly snobby, but I did believe that you could tell a lot about a man from just his picture. I also stated that I’d send a return photo with any replies, and as an afterthought, I posted a bold, high-lighted statement that a supremely clean bill of health was absolutely essential. Perhaps I was overstating my case, but I truly wanted to let any man who might be interested, know upfront that I was highly discriminating.
The summation of what I was looking for was, of course, the hardest part for me to do. Bearing in mind my reasons for doing this in the first place, I had very, very precise requirements. As such, I needed a very specific type of man, a man who did not know me in my current incarnation as a high-powered business woman. Simply put, I needed a man who would go into this thinking of me only as a partner to please and punish; that and little more. Considering how complicated I was (in the bedroom and out), I knew I’d have to do some serious digging.
It’s not like you could go pick the perfect man out of a catalogue. There might be a number of guys out there who, on the surface, were interested in trying to help me with my unique, individual problem. Only it wasn’t just a matter of desire. They had to not only want to “handle” me; they had to be capable of doing so.
I had to be careful, selective, and judicious. I had to choose exactly the right type of person for the requisite job. If, just like in the movie, finding a dominating ‘Master’ to inflict pain could somehow deliver what it overtly promised, it just might end up saving my life. Not that I was suicidal by any means, but living like this, wasn’t truly living at all.
I didn’t know if this would work out on the first outing, or if I’d have to go on a series of ‘blind dates’ before I found the man I believed was the one for me. And even then, I had no idea how easy it would be to go through with it. All I did know was that I had no choice left but to try. Everything else had failed me so thoroughly, this was simply my very last hope.
For the first week after I’d placed the ad, I found myself weeding through ridiculous responses. I immediately tossed out any emails with glaring spelling or grammatical mistakes, deleting them with a lightning-quick finger-stroke, regardless of how handsome they were in their attached photos. The kind of man I required could not just be meat, bones, and brute strength. He would need to know how to control me, push me, pleasure me. And seeing as how seriously screwed up I was, that was going to take a fair amount of brains.
Those whose pictures looked more than a few years old, I chucked in the electronic trash-bin as well. The only reason not to provide a fairly recent picture was if you truly had something hideous to hide; a receding hairline, a pot-belly, a flash of white, un-tanned skin around your ring finger indicating that you were currently married. I certainly wasn’t searching for perfection, and I could easily deal with physical flaws. But honesty was absolutely crucial.
After that initial run-through, I then disposed of all the emails whose photos had backgrounds looking too family-residential. You know, the house, the two-car garage, the dog, the cutesy neighborhood. Those men were probably also quite likely married, desiring nothing more than the freedom to fool around. And in that case, they were looking in the wrong direction. There were literally tons of websites geared specifically for the casual, chicanery-type cheater. Besides, even if they weren’t technically married, they were surely in the process of dealing with a recent divorce. There would be no other conceivable reason to live in such a neighborhood - a place where each street screamed “suburban dad” - when something much more “bachelor-like” would be quite preferable for a man in that kind of situation. I don’t think I personally knew of even one truly ‘eligible’ man who lived out in the ‘burbs. No – those guys all stayed in tiny, sparse lofts, lived in high-rise penthouses, or shared an apartment with other single friends in the city (depending, of course, on their individual financial situations).
There was another thing that bothered me about “dating” a man who had recently gone through (or was still in the process of muddling through) a nasty divorce. For him, a great deal of his desire to dominate a woman could very well be little more than a direct result of his need to take his raging vengeance towards his ex-wife out on a willing and unknowing substitute. Thanks, but no thanks, I quickly decided. What I wanted, what I needed, involved so damn much more.
And so it went: all of this fastidious weeding-out of undesirables, leaving me in the end, with absolutely nothing at all. No one passed my initial scrutiny; no one.
But then, on the eighth day, I found Adam.
First, though, I had to go through twenty-six other emails just to get to him. Getting more and more disappointed by the second, I finally got down to the very last box. Hoping for the best, I moved my mouse over and clicked on his message, the subject of which read simply, “Your Ad”. The letter was quite long, and from the very first word, the viciously candid sentences stabbed out at me from the computer screen like sucker punches aimed straight to the soul. Suddenly seeming as if it had come half-unhinged inside my chest, my oscillating heart began to pound faster and faster as I read:
I saw your post. You’re not being straight with yourself, or your prospective applicants. But that’s a common human flaw for silly little girls.
So, then, are you a silly little girl?
Or perhaps it’s nothing more than an innocent mistake; the culmination of a complete and utter inability to see yourself clearly, combined with the sad fact that you have absolutely no idea what you really want. However, regardless of the mitigating factors, you are unintentionally misleading whosoever is pitiable enough to fall for your inane and rather ineptly-written lines.
Either way; you need correction.
It is inexcusable, in my book, for you to dance around the truth of what you’re honestly seeking, couching your carefully-constructed prose with socially acceptable mores and norms. Hiding your true inner character, and pretending all the while that you’re not the twisted, damaged merchandise that stares blankly back at you from the mirror every morning and every night.
Here, I paused, feeling bilious anger rising in my chest. Who in the fuck did this guy think he was? He was perversely cruel and cold. I grabbed the mouse and moved the cursor up to the tool bar. My finger hovered over the delete button. I took two deep breaths. I tried to push down on the little trashcan icon, but something inside me balked. I couldn’t do it. I simply had to see what the rest of the letter said.
Perhaps I was nothing more than a pathetic masochist, but regardless of my questionable motivations, I continued.
Now, getting down to basics:
I imagine you are perceived by those around you as an attractive, highly-influential, well-respected person within your chosen profession. I think you stifle your inborn creativity in exchange for increased productivity, not to mention as a coping mechanism to effectively smother your one and only outlet for devastating self-doubt and crushing fear. I believe you are quite definitely a woman whose peers, by all accounts, think is secure, ambitious, courageous, and strong. In fact, your very choice of words suggest to me that you project yourself as a veritable power-house of female strength and liberation.
But it’s all really nothing more than a cautiously cultivated lie, is it not? A façade so meticulously crafted that it was meant to con - not just everyone around - but very possibly even you, yourself. That dangerous dichotomy is exactly why yo
u need me, because sweetheart, I can see right through your pure and unadulterated bullshit.
And so, rest assured; regardless of that puerile little ad of yours (that humorous paradigm of hypocrisy that merely flirted with the truth), I can still see the exquisite angst and immaculate torment that both lie so lovely and guarded, right beneath the surface of your otherwise bland and derisory words. What you truly need, my dear, is a real man with a firm hand; a man with the ability, the strength, the knowledge, and the will to effectively control you. To carefully regulate your pain, fastidiously dole out your torture, and methodically manage your pleasure, gratification, indulgence, and anguish.
In so doing, I can free you from your own self-hatred. I can also help you break free from the manacles of your overwhelming inner turmoil, and grinding, suffocating self-doubt.
You’re quite endearingly lost and floundering, yet the longer you stay missing, the harder you’ll be to find.
I believe I can recover your truth…If you have the humility and the courage to do so.
Whatever has happened to bring you to me; is the past. All that matters from this instant forward is the next moment, the next breath, the next beat of your hot, red heart.
If you can overcome your instinctively cumbrous fear, if you’re ready to meet a powerful man who has the capacity and the necessary force to captivate, dictate, educate, and regulate you; email me a recent photo and your full name.
And please, a word or two that is the real you.
If I like what I see, I will respond.
Sincerely yours,
~Adam Cowell Bishop, [email protected]
Beautiful Agony (A Tale Of Savage Love, Part I) Page 2