* * *
Harvey looked a lot like my high school principal, which was a little weird since that’s exactly what he liked to role-play. He was just under six feet tall and always wore a perfectly ironed white dress shirt and slacks. He had salt-and-pepper hair and wore glasses. He was one of the few clients I can think of who always remained fully clothed and never pleasured himself during a session. In fact, he never said anything overtly sexual or indicated anything was arousing in all of the times I would come to play with him. I think he got off on the head-fuck.
His session was essentially that he was a headmaster whom you had been sent to because you were caught smoking cigarettes at school. He had a mint that he used as his cigarette prop. It was one of the plastic-wrapped ones that you get when you leave a restaurant. I’m fairly sure he had been using the same mint for years. He had me hide the “cigarette” somewhere on my person, then come to his “office” for my punishment.
He always played in the school room, which was an adorable space on the ground floor decorated with all of the features of a classroom: student desks, the teacher’s desk at the front, a chalkboard, bookshelves with textbooks, the works.
I entered the classroom in the classic naughty-schoolgirl uniform he had asked me to change into. I had hidden the mint in the waistband of the skirt.
He stood and faced me, leaning on the teacher’s desk as I entered.
“Scarlett, you’ve been caught smoking in the bathroom again. In fact, Mr. Smith tells me that you’ve hidden a cigarette somewhere on you. Is that true?”
“No, Sir!” I whined. “I’m a good girl, Sir. I would never do anything like that. Mr. Smith just hates me!”
“Scarlett, you’re already going to be punished for smoking. Now I’m going to have to add punishments for lying and being disrespectful about a teacher. I’m going to need to search you for this cigarette you’ve hidden.”
He slowly slid his hands up and down my body.
“What’s this, Scarlett … not wearing a bra, either? We’ll need to punish you for that as well. What a naughty girl you are.”
“No, Sir! Please, I just forgot today! Please, I won’t do it again!”
He had to have found the mint already, but he kept searching for much longer than was necessary before pulling it out and exclaiming, “And how do you explain this, young lady?”
“Ummm … Sir … I don’t know. That’s not mine. Mr. Smith must’ve hidden it there.”
He chuckled and shook his head.
“You’re in enough trouble as it is. Best stop there. Now you’re going to take all of your punishment. We’ll go in groups of ten strokes until I think you’ve been properly punished. You are to count each stroke aloud and thank me after each set of ten. Now bend over the desk and spread your legs. First, we’ll start with your warm-up … no need to count. Let’s just see if we can get that bottom to turn scarlet.”
I was anticipating the blow, but still jumped when his bare hand struck my left cheek and his other hand struck immediately on the other side. He alternated sides and moved in circles, finding a rhythm and covering every square inch of my ass and upper thighs with slaps that stung slightly but didn’t really hurt. He occasionally threw in a heavier one that stung deeper. I would come to learn the difference between stingy and thuddy pain. Most people love one and hate the other. As a Domme, it pays to read which your sub prefers. Sometimes it makes sense to give them the kind of pain they crave … but other times it’s better to give them exactly the kind of pain they hate because it breaks them down mentally. It all depends what kind of scene you are doing and what kind of sub you are playing with.
When Harvey had finished my warm-up, I could feel the heat coming off my ass. I couldn’t say I had enjoyed it, but it really hadn’t been bad so far either.
He sat in a chair and said, “Now, Scarlett, you’re going to take the next part of your punishment over my knee.”
He had me lie over his lap so that I was pressed against him and trapped in his control. It was a position that gave him all of the power. I had seen girls list “over-the-knee spanking” on their profiles as something they enjoyed on the Dungeon Web site and hadn’t really understood what made it special. I was beginning to figure it out. It was simultaneously humiliating and terribly intimate.
He struck his first blow and I clenched my teeth together, knowing that the tone had shifted. This was no longer a warm-up. He struck two more times before pausing to say, “You aren’t counting. We’ll need to start your punishment over.”
“One.”
I could feel him chuckling.
“Good girl.”
“Two.”
By the time we got to ten I was sweating. I thought we were maybe entering a territory that went beyond light.
He paused and rubbed my backside before saying, “Naughty Scarlett, you were supposed to thank me after each group of ten.”
Goddamn it.
“Thank you, Sir!”
“Too late. We’ll do that set again.”
“One…”
This time I didn’t forget to thank him. It didn’t escape me that I as much as I hated this, I was getting a firsthand education into the mentality of a sub and what impact the Dom’s actions can have.
We did two more sets of ten with his bare hands and then he had me bend over the desk again while he got the paddles out. My ass was already tender, so the blows of the paddle stung like a motherfucker. I didn’t know yet that guys like Harvey like it when their subs react. Some of them want the girl to enjoy it and make noises of pleasure. Others want to hear squeals and grunts of pain to make them feel powerful. Some enjoy tears. I wasn’t experienced enough to fake any of those noises. Stoicism was my instinctive reaction, so I didn’t make a peep. I would’ve gone home with far fewer bruises that day if I had swallowed my pride and squealed a few times. In Harvey’s eyes, if I wasn’t making noise, he could keep going heavier. And in my eyes, the heavier he went, the quieter it made sense for me to be. The advice I had been given in the dressing room to keep him in line didn’t even cross my mind. I was simply focused on getting through the rest of the session without crying.
He must have been able to tell from my changing tone of voice as I counted each set that I was somewhere between agony and tears, but was resolutely refusing to break.
He looked at his watch and said, “This is going to be our last set, young lady. I want you to beg me for ten more good ones.”
I could think of few things I wanted less, but I complied.
“Please, Sir. Please give me ten more good ones and then I’ll be a good girl.”
“Okay, Scarlett. Since you’ve been so good, no need to count these ones. I’ll make them quick. You just need to give me a hug to thank me at the end.”
I bent over the desk and braced myself. He leaned his forearm on my back to hold me down, which he hadn’t done up to that point. He had taken a heavy ruler that was on the wall as decoration down without me seeing. He struck me viciously ten times with it in quick succession with as much force as he could muster and my mind exploded with the pain. I struggled to stand and stop him after the first few blows, but he was ready and held me down for the rest. I felt tears stinging my eyes, but it was over with so quickly that I was still shaking when he let me up and embraced me in a hug. It was then I saw the ruler in his hand, but I was too close to tears to yell at him without breaking down.
“Excuse me … your session is over,” came the voice from the intercom.
“You were such a good girl. You did so well. You’re not a light player at all, Scarlett.” He smiled as though this was a wonderful compliment.
I couldn’t look him in the eye as he tipped me and left. As he walked out the door he said, “I’ll see you next week.”
I hastily cleaned up the room, taking deep breaths to compose myself before seeing anyone else. My ass and thighs were on fire, but I tried not to think about it.
I didn’t look at Caterina as I pass
ed the desk and walked to the dressing room. Dominic was on the couch having his hands massaged by two pretty subs I hadn’t met yet.
He looked up at me expectantly and I thought he was going to ask me how it went, but whatever he saw on my face made him stand up and hug me instead. I didn’t think I wanted human contact but was surprised at how good it felt.
“Turn around,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.
He lifted my skirt without asking, and I heard both subs gasp in horror.
“Scarlett, what the fuck? He’s actually broken the skin in a few places and you’re bleeding. That’s not allowed even in a heavy session!”
He turned me back around and forced me to look him in the eye.
“Erin said you only took light leather paddles in there. How did he manage this?”
“Mostly with the paddles and his hands.”
He wasn’t letting that slide.
“Mostly…?”
“He took a ruler off the wall at the end.”
“That son of a bitch! I don’t know why he hasn’t been banned. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“You need to get some arnica on that,” said one of the unknown subs.
I knew she was just trying to help, but I was pissed off and hurting and confused about where to direct it.
“I’m fine,” I repeated and walked outside to the patio to take a deep breath.
I avoided talking to anyone else, took the $400 I had made that night from Caterina, and started driving home. Amelia looked appalled when I showed her my ass, but thankfully didn’t criticize. She just sighed, shook her head, and gave me a hug. We curled up on the couch and watched episodes of Sex and the City until I was able to fall asleep. Sometimes your best friend knows just what you need.
Finding reasons to avoid Wes in the following days was not as simple. The fact that I was already too tangled in my lies to see him made me doubt myself even more. I felt like I was already in too deep to be able to tell him. There was a line somewhere that I had willfully ignored as I skipped across it, and now that I was on the other side, I didn’t see how I was going to resolve the situation. Part of me wanted to just break up with him and be done with it. That would be the easiest way out, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. He was my best friend and I cared about him. I wasn’t ready to lose him.
Probably should have thought about that before lying to him about becoming a sex worker, ass-hat.
10. DOGGIE DAN
I gave serious thought to never going back to the Dungeon and pretending none of it had ever happened, but not for long. I had been overwhelmed by my second day, but I was determined to stick with it. I had seen some of the less appealing sides of being a sex worker. No matter how you try to glamorize it, you are charging someone money for the use of your body and mind for their sexual gratification. Like all human interaction, this occurred on a spectrum and sometimes it was impossible to tell where a particular client would fall. I could leave a session empowered or utterly humiliated, disgusted or agonizingly turned on. Whether a client was attractive or not was not a good indicator of how it would go.
I was sure there was a light at the end of the tunnel, something worthwhile to be had from persevering. I needed to learn from my experiences subbing so that I could be a better Domme. If there was one thing that had become crystal clear in my mind, it was that I wanted the power I saw in those other women. I wanted to know what it felt like to be the one in control and they all swore that the best way to learn how was through the path I was on, so I resolved to stick with it.
My next shift at the Dungeon was on Sunday, which was nice because I didn’t have to make the dramatic switch from one job to the other. I got there a little early for my evening shift and walked in to pandemonium. Five subs and Switches were engaged in an intense round of Twister in the middle of the lobby. Raven, with the spinner in hand, was directing the action. The players were in an assortment of lingerie, costumes, and leather, and were contorted into an impressive mess of positions. When I walked in and set my bag down, Raven waved and held the spinner in front of me. I flicked the black arrow, and before it had even stopped, Raven called out, “Left hand: boob!”
The girls shrieked with laughter and scrambled to find a way to get a hand on someone else’s boob.
“Don’t blame me,” Raven said, giggling, “Scarlett is the perv who spun it. We were having good clean fun until she arrived!”
I had been nervous about coming back in but found myself laughing along and bantering with the group within seconds.
Erin had a long feather on a stick and was using it to tickle the helpless contenders. An exotic-looking blond Domme who I deduced was called Storm was blowing gently into one of the sub’s ears to distract her. Erin eventually used her feather to get one of the girls to cave, squealing as she took the whole pile down with her.
“Mistress Erin wins!” shouted Raven. The rules of Twister were apparently a little different around here.
Back in the dressing room, I didn’t bother trying to hide the marks on my derriere, which was now an exciting assortment of black and blue with some yellow, green, and purple thrown in for good measure.
“Damn, girl! Someone got you good…” said Storm by way of introduction. I caught a hint of a Russian accent that made her icy blond coloring that much more exotic. She had gorgeous high cheekbones and frigid blue eyes that belied her warm smile. She looked like Dominatrix Barbie.
“Harvey,” I replied, and she shrugged and nodded as though this sounded about right.
“Here,” she said, tossing what looked like a toothpaste tube to me. “Put some arnica on that and it’ll help the bruising.”
It was the second time I had heard this mystery substance mentioned. Later research would tell me that it was a homeopathic remedy derived from a plant in the sunflower family used to treat inflammation, pain, and bruises. Experience would teach me that it really worked.
I rubbed the cream onto my ridiculous-looking backside and glanced up to see Erin watching me from the doorway. There was nothing sexual about what I was doing, but her watching me made it feel like there was. I finished and let it dry before getting dressed.
Raven appeared in the doorway with Erin and said, “We thought after your last shift that you might want to take it easy today and shadow us in some of our Domme sessions since that’s what you want to learn. Erin has Doggie Dan in a little while and then I have Alex again tonight if you want to see what the muddy boots were all about. I think you only have one session booked right now, so we should be able to work around it.”
My session was booked with a guy named Ethan, but that was as much as I knew about him. The desk Mistress for the night, a bottle blonde named Viv who was past her prime but still dressed like she was twenty-two, looked at me like I was an idiot wasting her time when I pressed her about what the session would be. I left it alone, but I sincerely hoped he wasn’t into spanking.
I had to wait until Erin had completed her interview with Doggie Dan and gone upstairs to their room before joining them. We could shadow a session for the final fifteen minutes. If the extra girl was a client request, it was known as a cameo and came with special pricing. In this case, I was simply there to learn. Viv called back to the dressing room and let me know I could go upstairs.
Erin opened the door with a wink and ushered me inside.
I had been sitting downstairs trying to imagine what someone named Doggie Dan would look like and my imagination was completely wrong. He must have been pushing eighty and had the gray hair and wrinkled skin to show for it. Lots of wrinkled skin. I had never seen a man that old completely naked in person before. He was on all fours with a collar on and Erin was holding the end of his leash. His tongue was out and he was panting excitedly. When I closed the door behind me, he started to wag his “tail,” which meant he wriggled his body in excitement. I couldn’t repress a laugh, but played it off as mutual excitement to see him.
&nb
sp; “What a cute puppy you have, Mistress Erin!”
She patted him on the head, so I followed her lead and tickled behind his ears. He thumped his left leg in excitement and continued to pant.
“Doggie, why don’t we show Scarlett the tricks you’ve been learning today?”
I sat on a throne on the far side of the room and watched in genuine amazement as Erin took him through an elaborate sequence of tricks. He was fucking agile for his age! She didn’t have to correct or reprimand him even once. She just kept repeating, “Who’s a good boy? You are such a good dog!”
It was clear that Erin was in absolute control and that he was not only fine with this, but seemed at ease and confident in the knowledge that his Mistress would direct him. At the end of their show, Erin allowed him to kneel behind her and sniff her backside the same way you would expect a dog to. This had an unexpected effect on Dan’s man parts: from the wrinkles emerged an obvious erection.
Erin came and joined me on the arm of the throne and Dan lay down on a towel on the floor in front of us. As he manually stimulated himself, Erin told him all about the walks she was going to take him on and the dogs they were going to meet at the park.
“When you get to the park, there will be lots of owners there too. I’m going to walk you over to each of them and make you sniff their butts.”
He moaned loudly at this.
“And then with all of us watching, you’re going to have to squat down and shit right there in the dirt!”
This was apparently too much. Dan’s back arched off the towel and he came in a stream across his stomach. He didn’t stop after that, though, he kept arching as though he was having a seizure and shouting grunts for about thirty seconds. I was genuinely concerned that he was having some kind of medical emergency, but Erin didn’t react so I just watched it play out.
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