An example of a very sweet "thank-you" note sent to me by a happy client after a session. Not at all a requirement, but nice when it happens.

Hello Mistress Matisse:
I don't usually e-mail a thank you but I just had to drop you a note and thank you for the wonderful session. You are such an artist that your moniker of Matisse is just perfect for you. Your palate of skills painted the most wonderful portrait for me yesterday; you combined just the right proportions of deviousness, mystery, pain, pleasure and sensuality.
The ball busting was fantastic (and still memorable as I found out when I woke up this morning). As you said, it is such a taboo, and that is part of what makes it so exciting, especially experiencing the taboo mutually with you. One can go online to Max Fisch and read about all types of ball busting experiences, and most of them seem to incorporate humiliation of the submissive. Now I know some people are into humiliation, (not my thing) but, really what kind of talent does a Dom have to possess to kick a guy in the balls and have him feel humiliated? Not much.
But to do ball busting and not make it humiliating, but make it a sensual experience as you did takes real talent. The way you would stop my balls from swinging then hold and caress them with your pointed boots and then kick them was fantastically sensual. The same can be said for the way you manipulated them and kicked them with your bare feet - not to mention that great slap sound you produced. You truly are the Nordstrom of Mistresses.
Thanks again and I hope to see you soon - I'm saving my pennies.
Remembering you fondly (especially my balls)

Of course, I did not literally "bust" his balls, in the sense of breaking or damaging them. I just kicked them - very carefully. Aficionados of ball-kicking are necessarily a brave group - it's an activity where, if you don't do it properly, you can injure someone in a not-fun, doctor-visit-requiring type of way. A Mistress's attention to the fine points is crucial.
This particular gentleman is rather tall, so rather than trying to pretend I'm one of the Radio City Rockettes, I had him get on all fours on the floor, knees splayed wide. He watched me in a mirror as I stood behind him and took precise aim at his dangling, vulnerable flesh. There was no bondage involved - he stayed in position because he trusted me and he wanted to be there. Sometimes after a particularly resounding smack of my foot on his ball-sack, we'd both say, "Oooooo, good one!".
I really like what I do.

Today is Max's birthday, and what a happy girl I am that his mama gave birth to him, ah-hem, a certain number of years ago. He's my sweetie and I adore him.

So no long post today. You can amuse yourself with my latest column, or you can read about an escort service bust here in Seattle. As much as I would like to see sex-work decriminalized, this news report doesn't make the arrestee sound very sympathetic, and what I've heard about him from underground channels doesn't contradict that impression. So it sort of sucks, but I'm just glad it wasn't any of my friends in that branch of the biz.

As for me, I'm going to see one adventurous boy this afternoon who has asked about exploring this particular type of all-natural naughtiness…

And then I'm going to devote the lion's share of my evening to making Max glad he's alive.

Listening To Messages
Every Monday through Friday, after I get done with my morning activities – which, depending on the day, may mean I've been extremely busy, or may mean I slept until 11:45 – I turn on my phone and listen to my messages.

YOU HAVE 9 NEW MESSAGES. PRESS 1 TO HEAR MESSAGES.
Beep!
"Hey Matisse, it's me, Bob. You know, Bob from Microsoft, I saw you about three weeks ago? Listen, do you have any time Wednesday? Like around 4? I'd love to see you. Call me back at 206-XXX-XXXX…"
END OF MESSAGE.
Oh yeah – Bob. Nervous first-timer in a Hawaiian shirt. He was nice, I'll call him back.

NEXT MESSAGE:
"Oooh, uh, you sexy bitch, I wanna lick yo-"
MESSAGE DELETED.

NEXT MESSAGE:
"Uh, yeah, like, call me back as soon as you can, 206-XXX-XXXX"
END OF MESSAGE.
Sorry, if you don't leave a name, I don't call you back. Especially if you sound like you're stoned and you have very loud rock music blaring in the background.

NEXT MESSAGE:
Hello, Mistress Matisse, my name is Barbara, and I'd like to tell you about our exciting new adult advertising website, www.HereTodayGoneTomorrow.net. Text advertising rates start at only fifty dollars a month prepaid if you sign a five year contract and –"
MESSAGE DELETED.
It's a sad day when even sexual outlaws like me get rip-off telemarketing calls. What is the point of living on wild side if the tame side insists on following you around?

NEXT MESSAGE:
"Oh, uh, hi, I'm calling for Mistress Matisse? My name is Quentin, and I've been thinking about calling you for a couple of years, but, you know, I'm just pretty nervous, because I don't have a lot of experience, and I was wondering about a couple of things. See, I've been interested in spanking ever since this little girl next door - well, she wasn't really next door, she lived down the street, but we used to play house together in this little playhouse she had, and she used to spank me and I didn't really understanding it then, but now looking back I can see that I really liked it, and I used to wonder about trying to find her, but you know, that was so many years ago, and she might not feel the same way anymore, but anyway I was wondering if you've met other guys like me that got spanked when they were little kids and liked it and how you sort of handle that and –" Beep!
END OF MESSAGE.
Oy. Quentin here might be a perfectly nice guy - once he gets over his unfortunate case of verbal diarrhea. It's not uncommon for people to be nervously chatty when they call me, and I can be patient with that. However, if they continue blathering nonstop all the way into the actual session, well, that's a mood-breaker I don't permit. But it's nothing a good inflatable gag won't fix. I'm guessing I'll get another message from Quentin somewhere in this string where he actually gets down to business.

NEXT MESSAGE:"Oh, Mistress, I wanna be your slave-slut, can I please be your slave? I want you to fuck me in the –"
MESSAGE DELETED.
Interesting how quickly they jump from, "be your slave" to telling me what to do. Seems like a rather loose interpretation of the word slave. But I never do get obscene phone callers who say, "Oh, Mistress, I wanna be your little Do-Me Queen." That would actually be rather refreshing.

NEXT MESSAGE:
"John. 253-XXX-XXXX."
END OF MESSAGE.
Oh, now what am I supposed to make of that? He's one of those my-phone-company-charges-by-the-word types. Would it have killed him to say, "Hi, my name is… Please call me back at… " ? He just sounds rude, and I don't like rude boys. He goes to the bottom of the call-back list, and you know, I just may not get around to calling him at all.

NEXT MESSAGE:
"Hey Matisse, it's Marty. Call me, let's get together."
END OF MESSAGE.
Yes, if you come see me twice a month for four-plus years, you can leave me that kind of message, too, and I'll put your name right at the top of the call-back list. But there is no line-jumping in The I-Don't-Have-To-Leave-My-Number-Because-It's-Programmed-Into-Matisse's-Phone Club. Certain things take time.

NEXT MESSAGE:
"Oh, um, hi, Mistress, it's Quentin, sorry about that, I guess I talked too long on the last message, but, um, so I was wondering about a session? Because I had a kind of special request and I don't know if you do that or what, and, you know, it's kinda personal and all, but, I was wondering…Would you, um, be willing to wear, like, sort of a kind of a girlish dress, and pretend that I'm a naughty little boy? I mean, if that's okay, because I know your website says you do domestic discipline and stuff, but I don't want to offend you by asking you for that, so if you're not okay with doing that then that's fine too, but it's a really big fantasy of mine and stuff…Oh I guess I should give you my phone number before I get cut off, again, it's 206-XXX-XXXX. So, I'm looking forward to talking to you, I should be home all afternoon, except if I run out for a few minutes, that might be around three, but I will be right back, so –"
END OF MESSAGE.
Quentin gets cut off before he can give me all his potential movements for the next eight hours. Perhaps I'll do a scene with Quentin where I only allow him to speak one sentence, of ten words or less, every three minutes. Hey, I've got an egg timer.

This guy got one important thing wrong, and so did this guy, and so did these people.
They're wrong for calling this woman a dominatrix.

No. I'm a dominatrix, and I'm disgusted by this abuse. Whether Lynndie English was a unwilling pawn or a gleeful participant, she is in no way worthy of the title dominatrix. This is not BDSM, because BDSM, by definition, is consensual. This isn't. It's abuse, plain and simple.
And if you profess to be outraged by this, tagging Private English with a sexy title is a strange way of showing it. What kind of message are you really sending? Would you call an accused rapist "a stud"? A "ladies man"? A "love god"?

I don't eroticise non-consensual violence. It's a damn shame some so-called "normal" people do.

Rare Occurrence yesterday: I got blown off by a client.

I'd say I get stood up – as I define that term - about three, maybe four times a year. "Being stood up" means: I'm there at my studio, I'm dressed and ready, and he doesn't show.

My "stood up" rate is so low for several reasons. Number one, it's new clients who are, by far, the biggest no-show risk. I'm at a point in my career where I see perhaps one new person a week- the rest of my appointments are guys I know.

Everyone who is seeing me for the first time always has to confirm with me the morning of the appointment. Now, I do very occasionally get new clients who confirm in the morning and then don't show, but that's quite rare. So I generally know hours ahead of time if a new person has gotten cold feet. I don't like people making appointments and then not keeping them, but with this system at least I'm not there waiting and there's a chance I can re-book the time with someone else.

Once in a while a new guy will forget – or something – to confirm in the morning, and then call me shortly before his appointment time, acting as if he thinks it's still a go. But it's not going to happen. I won't be keeping the appointment, and I won't rebook with that guy, either. I have rules, and if you can't follow the rules at this stage of the game, it's not going to get any better.

But my blow-off guy yesterday wasn't a new guy. He's one of those clients – I suppose now I should call him an ex-client – who's seen me about two or three times a year for the last couple of years. So not a real steady regular, but certainly a known entity. He's a nice guy when you're with him, attractive and charming. But when he called to make the appointment, my brain was running a little more slowly than it should have. Here's what happened:

Ring ring!
Me: hello?
Caller: Hey, it's me, Mr. No Show.
Me: Oh, hi, baby, how you doing?

As I say this, my brain grabs the name and does a fast search through the mental hard drive. Ping! Up pops an image of a face and the thought: yeah, we know this guy, and he's cool.

Mr. No Show: Just great. Listen, can I get an appointment Monday at 2?
Me: Monday at 2? I think that's open, let me check - yeah, that works. Okay, fine, Monday at two, we're on.
Mr. No Show: Terrific! See you then.
Click. He hangs up.

And now, about three seconds too late, my brain pulls up another bit of info: Yeah, he's cool - except that he blew you off that one time. Make sure to tell him to call and confirm Monday morning, so you don’t go all the way over there and get dressed and ready for nothing!

Shit.

And of course I don't have contact info for him, dammit, because I don't require it. I'll certainly take an email addy or a phone number if someone's willing to give it to me, but I don't insist. And 99% of the time I wouldn't need it anyway.

So Mr. No Show was already in the category of clients that the English would call, "dodgy". That means "of uncertain outcome; especially fraught with risk". Dodgy clients always have to call to confirm, too - except when I let them get off the phone too quickly.

After Mr. No Show's previous no-show, which was about two years ago, he called and apologized and I let him sweet-talk me into forgiving him and taking him back as a client. (Some financial reparations were also called for.)

But this time, I have a feeling I've seen the last of him. It's just a hunch. I'll keep you posted if he calls up with some creative excuse; "The dog ate my cell phone!" Riiiight…

I had dinner at Hana with Miss K a few days ago. I don't recall if I've mentioned this, but Miss K is an independent call girl. So whenever we do dinner, it's an opportunity to have a Bitch-About-Work Fiesta. We both like what we do, but sometimes you just have to vent to someone who gets it.

"Okay, who gets to go first?" I asked.
"Oh, I think that would have to be – ME!" she answered
"Ooo, that good, huh? Well, let me have it, baby."
"Fuckin' A, the weirdo I saw this week – you won't believe what he did."

I start laughing a little already, just watching her head do that snakelike swivel of outrage. Miss K has a background in theatre, and it shows: her eyes, her hands, her shoulders – they all eloquently express her total disdain for this man who dared offend her. When all six feet of an irritated Amazon queen gets going, it's better than a floor show. I love having such entertaining friends.

"So, it was a new guy, and he sounded a little weird on the phone, but not scary-weird, just no-social-skills-weird."
I understand this perfectly. It's nice when one gets to see sophisticated men as clients, but frankly, if it weren't for guys with no social skills, there'd be a lot of hungry sex workers in the world.

"He arrives for the appointment ten minutes early." We share a grimace. We hate it when people are early, since we're always flying around getting ready until the last possible moment.

"I have him sit down on the couch in the living room and ask him to wait for a few minutes. I leave the room for, oh, maybe five minutes. When I come back into the room-" she leans forward for emphasis, "he's rearranging all my fucking furniture."
"You're kidding me?"
"I'm serious. He's moved the couch and coffee table, and he's got the edge of the area rug, and he's pulling on it."
I sit there silently for a moment, picturing this. "That's bizarre."
"Oh - and did I mention he's naked?"
I give a whoop of laughter. "No!"
She gestures with her hands to indicate that she can find no words to express her incredulity. I try to stop laughing, not because it offends her – we always play these kinds of incidents for laughs with each other – but because it's so outré that I have to say:
"So you asked him what the hell he was doing, right?"
"Oh yes," she says, with a rising inflection that bodes ill for the nude furniture mover. "Yes, I asked him what he was doing. And he told me – get ready for this – he told me that in his fantasy, the room was arranged differently."
I can hardly speak for laughing. "He- he- he had a fantasy about your living room furniture?" I really don't know what the staff at Hana must make of our conversations. I'm sure they think we are very, very strange.
"Apparently he felt it was important."
"Okay, you win the prize for weirdest person of the week. So what did you do?"
"Well, I just stood there for a minute and gave him a look. And then I told him that he shouldn't have moved my furniture without permission, and he apologized. And then I asked him if the way that I looked more or less fit with his fantasy, because I really wasn't interested in having him try to rearrange me."
"Oh, good one."
"So he apologized again, and,"- she shrugged - "we did the date."

Of course she did, because for all her show of indignation, Miss K has the generosity of spirit to forgive faux pas like these. It's one of the traits that makes her a good friend, and I also consider it essential to being a good sex worker. Yeah, it's great to have a good figure and a pretty face and the technical skills that go along with your particular speciality. But if you don't have some kindness and compassion to give your clients, they'll feel that, and a lot of them won't come back. That's true in any branch of the sex industry - even mine.

An Event Reminder For Local Folks

I'm going to be teaching a workshop at the Seattle sex toy store Toys In Babeland on May 23rd.
The topic will be "Erotic Impact Play". My partner Max will also be teaching "Rope Bondage 101". It'll be a great pair of classes, and a great opportunity to say hi to me! My TIB classes always sell out, so get tickets in advance through the website.

Which brings me to another thought…I do like teaching people about SM, and so while I get a lot of email from people who have question about BDSM, I generally don't mind answering simple questions. I think it's sort of a good kinky karma thing on my part.

But some people who write to me ask me for detailed explanations about rather complex BDSM issues or advanced techniques. Sometimes they want me to give them a lesson plan on how to do a BDSM scene with their partner. I usually tell them that I'd have to write a whole book to do these kinds of questions justice, and actually, there a number of excellent books on the topic already.

If you're interested learning about the psychology of BDSM, and why people like it, I'd recommend Dr.Gloria Brame's book, Different Loving. (She has a rather large website as well.)

Want to learn how to do it with your sweetie? Greenery Press publishes a bunch of easy-to-understand books on a variety of BDSM specialties, as well as some A-to-Z theory-and-technique books, like the venerable SM 101, by Jay Wiseman.

Looking for good fiction to wank to? Check out the Quality SM online bookstore. I also recommend the work of kink veteran Pat Califia, or my friend Jeff Gord's books, at House of Gord.

As I said, I don't mind polite people asking me multiple choice/yes-or-no, or short-answer questions. But I have neither the time nor the inclination to write ten-thousand-word emails.

And, frankly, I tend to look somewhat askance at people who aren't willing to exercise their brains enough to learn some things on their own. If you aren't willing to do a little work on your end – and yes, that may include forking out a few bucks to support some starving kinky author – then I'm not terribly inclined to spoon-feed you for free.

I sound rather severe, don't I? But of course, that is one of the perks of my profession.

Weird Call Of The Day:

Ring ring!
Me: Hello?
Caller: Um, I'm calling because I need to cancel my appointment tomorrow…
Me: Huh…An appointment with me? Tomorrow? What's your name?
Caller: Bob.
Me: Well, Bob, I don't have anyone booked for tomorrow. When did you and I make this appointment? Because I don't have any recollection of talking to you.
Caller: Oh – um, it may not have been with you.
Me: What do you mean?
Caller: I had an appointment with somebody, but I'm not sure if it was with you. It was someone in this section…But I can't make it, so I'm just calling everybody in the paper.
Me: You don't remember who you made an appointment with, so you're just calling everyone in the "fetish" section of the adult ads.
Caller: Yeah.
Me: O-kay. Well, it wasn't me…Better luck elsewhere.

I hung up and thought, I don't know whether he's a twit for forgetting who he made an appointment with, or a polite guy for calling every mistress in town to try to cancel it instead of just blowing it off. Some encounters defy easy categorization.

The date says Friday but to me it's still Thursday night…

Two excellent clients today, both regulars – the blue-eyed rope bondage lover with the infectious laugh, and a guy from Vermont with a sweet nature and a very tough ass.

I did a partial suspension with Blue Eyes – a hog-tie on the floor, with lines going to a point in the ceiling. There was a lot of tension on his arms and shoulders, but he just laughed happily. So did I. We always have such a good time together.

Vermont is a relatively new client to me – I think this was his third visit. I'm discovering that he's quite delightfully masochistic, with a nice high pain threshold. When I'm with a new person, I'm so used to carefully modulating the level of physical intensity that when I began flogging his ass, it took me a few minutes to trust what I was seeing: that he could really take the heavier blows.

So I traded my soft suede flogger for a heavier, stiffer one. He took a few thumps with that and just smiled and wiggled his butt at me invitingly. Oh, this is going to be fun, I thought.

He took half an hour of pretty steady beating with my nastiest, meanest flogger. It's got thick tails made out of rubber instead of the usual leather, and it bites – hard. It usually falls into the category of "Tired Top Toys". A TTT is a toy you get out when you're the top and you're playing with a bottom who's capacity to absorb intense physical sensation (read: pain) is just flat wearing you out. You're sweating, you're panting, your arm is getting sore - but you don't want to wimp out before the bottom does. Heaven forbid, your reputation as a sadist would be ruined! So you get out the nasty-mean toy - the one that will, after just a few strokes, make them say "Mercy!"

That's all very tongue-in-cheek, of course. I wasn't trying to make Vermont end the scene, I was having far too good a time. I was swinging that whip like Babe Ruth and he just kept smiling and holding his ass out for me.

When I decided his butt had had enough, I laid down on my bondage table and had him take off my high boots, and he kissed and caressed my feet and legs. I could really spend a whole hour just doing that, because having my feet kissed and touched is very high on the list of "Things Mistress Matisse Really, Really Likes". Every foot-kisser has a slightly different style. Vermont did it like a man playing a woodwind instrument – subtle, delicate, with his fingers moving in sensual counterpoints to his mouth.

I love my life.

In Stark Contrast To Yesterday's Entry…

I'm thinking today about the nature of sexual attraction. Specifically, sexual attraction and me.
I have a lot of good sexual energy in my life. I have Max, whom I adore, and I have Mike, who is fabulous. But just lately I've sprouted a little tendril of attraction to another guy. A green and slender thing it is, not very sturdy. But there nonetheless.

There seems to be a fairly consistent pattern with my attractions. I become aware it, and then, I just sit with it for a while. This is Attraction: Stage One. It might last three months, six months, sometimes longer. It depends on how quickly I get to know the person – and what I want from them. I'll flirt, lightly, and allow myself to be flirted with. But no goal-directed forwardly progress will be attempted – or permitted. I'm merely observing and absorbing the person.

Then, one day, something in me shifts, and I move into Attraction: Stage Two. Now I get pro-active. Now is when the flirtations become less innocuous, more edged with real possibility. Now is when I ask you out for coffee, if you haven't already asked me, with a certain agenda on my mind.

Of course, it doesn't always work out. There was another guy, lately, with who I'd been in a Stage One level of attraction. After nearly a year, I felt ready to go to the next level, but then - in spite of every indication that he wanted that, too – he backed away. He told me I intimidated him – and he's actually not the first man to tell me that. You'd think it would teach me not to flirt with vanilla guys. C'est la vie.

And then there's my harem – excuse me, I mean my clients. I think doing what I do is one of the reasons it's easy for me to be a slow mover when it comes to my private-life attractions. Max gives me the stable, long-term love/sex/play relationship, Mike is the fun diversion, but my clients give me the type of gratification you only get from being lusted after and adored by relative strangers.

So what would I want from the new guy? Remains to be seen, doesn't it? That's really what Stage One is all about. I can become attracted to someone's smile or the set of their shoulders, their intellect, their humor, the way they talk about their passions, or what they seem to see in me. But those things may be mere islands of charm - pleasant in their way, but unconnected to the qualities I would require in someone if I'm going to go to Stage Two.

What are those qualities? Oh, that's a topic for another day…

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Snippets of a Party

Max and I had a party at our house this past weekend…here are few memorable bits.

(Conversation between me and a woman who's working her way through school as a bachelor-party stripper.)
Her: I did a party for some (insert name of large industrial corporation here) drivers tonight, and they were so nice.
Me: When I used to dance it seemed like the blue-collar guys always tipped the best.
Her: Yeah, they do, and they're more polite, too. Most of those executive types – pah, they're jerks, it's like they think they're entitled to do whatever they want.
Me: I wonder if it's that working class guys have fewer hang-ups about liking strippers – you know, like the white collar guys are all conflicted and embarrassed about wanting to see tits and ass, so they act that out by being rude to you. And blue collar guys are just more relaxed about the whole thing.
Her: Maybe, but I think it's also about how you earn a living. I think guys who work in blue collar jobs just know more about what it's like to be fucking working for a living. They understand that you're working too, and if you're doing a good job for them, they appreciate that. The executive types think that you should be giving it to them for free – it's like a, "Why should I have to pay you for this, you should just give it to me" attitude.


Other highlights: After a certain amount of negotiation, I convinced a man crouched on the floor next to my chair to bark like a dog for me. And not just any dog, either – a collie, specifically. In return, I kissed him on the cheek. A satisfying exchange of pleasantries.

Across the room, a woman with a remotely-controlled electrode in her pussy yelped and writhed when it was activated by her lover, and she vented her electrically-powered energy by pounding her fists – quite hard - on the ass of another woman draped over the back of the couch next to her. They both laughed a great deal.

One of the three non-kinky people present watched this scene with mild concern. "I know she can get up and walk away if she wants to," she said, indicating the second woman, who was now offering her inner thighs to be pummeled. Then she looked the electrified girl. "But I'm beginning to fear for her reproductive organs." I reassured her that all would be well.

Late in the evening: I walked into my downstairs bathroom to find a beautiful naked woman tied up to the handrails in the shower, with two of my friends in poses of erotic menace next to her. Why, oh, why, I wondered to myself, don't I ever think to have this house wired with cams for these parties?

Because I am trying to get caught up with my life a busy weekend, I'm falling back on a previously-published piece. However, judging by the phone calls I get, it contains information that has not been disseminated widely enough. Enjoy, back to the regularly scheduled program soon.


Meeting The Mistress
You've noticed my ad in the local alternative paper, or you run across my website as you surf the net. The pictures and the words are intriguing, but unfamiliar to you. What does it all mean? How can you learn more, and perhaps get involved?
I'm a professional dominatrix. That means I do SM for a living: my clients and I do pre- negotiated SM scenes involving things like bondage, spanking, and dominant/submissive role-plays. They are the submissive, I am the dominant, and they pay me for my time.
If you don't know much about BDSM, negotiating your first meeting with a pro domme can be a little intimidating - here are some tips.

The Initial Contact
Either via email or by phone (or sometimes snail mail) you should convey the following information:
• Your first name, at least. She may want more information about you, or not.
• Whether or not you have any experience with SM/ bondage/ fetish/ dominance and submission. If you have, was it with a lover or a professional dominatrix?
• Some ideas of what you might like to do in a session.
This last question is where most newcomers clam up and "Uh, I don't know, the usual stuff, I guess…" No, no, no - that's not good enough, gentlemen. This isn't like seeing a call girl or a masseuse - there is no 'default' SM scene. Before you contact the Mistress, do your homework. Read kinky novels, look at fetish-porn websites, rent SM videos, and pay attention to what parts make your dick particularly hard. If you really want to be top of your class, read some non-fiction books about SM or study some of the SM educational websites.

Doing this will enable you to tell her what kinds of things you might like to do in a session. Professional dominatrixes do a very broad range of activities, and a session centering around, say, bondage and foot worship is very different from a session about caning and electrical play. You don't have to give a dissertation. You simply need to be able to say something like "Well, I think I'd like to be tied up. And I fantasize about spanking and having someone put women's underwear one me." Yes, it is odd to tell a stranger such very private things, but rest assured, she has heard it before, and she definitely understands your desires. Understand, I am not saying that these particular things are what you should ask for - but rather that you should be able to offer at least a sentence or two about what kinds of thoughts impelled you to contact a domina.

What Not To Do!
• Don't say you will "do anything you want, Mistress!" Believe me, any Mistress worth the name can think of things that you don't want to do. This type of response smacks of nothing as much as lack of imagination and mental laziness. It's an attempt to get your fantasy fulfilled without having to speak it. No matter how skilled a Mistress is, she isn't psychic. You owe her some communication about your interests and your limits.
• Don't say things like, "I just want to be dominated," or "I want to feel like you're totally in control of me." Those are nice ideas - but everyone who says them has a slightly different picture of how to act them out. You have to give the Mistress some idea of what actual activities might lead you to feel that way, otherwise she may think 'spanking', when what you're thinking is 'golden shower'.
• Don't assure her that you want to be her slave forever. If you feel that you must say this, save it until after the session, when she will feel that you are basing it on her power and ability, and not her sexy photographs on her website.
• Don't ask for a free session based on the fact that you are so very handsome/sexy/truly submissive/poor.
• Don't lie in answer to questions she may ask about your name or phone number. She is going to require a certain amount of information about you in order to feel safe about dealing with you. It may be a little, it may be a lot. If you find you aren't comfortable with what she wants, say so very politely. It may be that the two of you will not be able to see one another. But lying wastes both your time.

The tone of this contact should be adult, courteous and pleasant on both sides. The issue of consent, for both parties, is crucial in good, responsible SM, and simply asking a domina about her services does not, by definition, constitute you both negotiating and consenting to your being submissive to her. Either one of you attempting to act otherwise is presumptuous. I believe that exchanging information as equals is much wiser than attempting to function as Mistress and submissive from first instant of contact.
What's reasonable to expect from her in this contact…
• Expect to be treated with civility and honesty.
• Expect her to be clear about what her fee (donation, offering) is.
• Expect her to be able to tell you when she is available for sessions and how you need to go about making an appointment.
• Expect her to be able to describe her abilities, her equipment and her facilities, if any, including a very general geographic location such as " the downtown area".
• Expect her to able to answer a question about her willingness to do a specific type of scene. (Crossdressing, golden showers, CBT, et cetera.)
• Expect to feel that your stated limits (meaning: what you don't want to do) will be respected when it comes to negotiating a session.

It is my opinion that you should be careful about a domina from whom you don't get these things. If she is reluctant to furnish information it may be that she feels unsafe about you for some reason, but it may also be that she is being evasive because she is not what she advertises herself to be. And if you are treated disrespectfully during the initial contact, it is unlikely to get any better.

The Question of Sex….
Pro dommes are usually quick to let our potential clients that a session with us does not include actual sex. However, it would be false to say that sessions with a pro domme are not ever erotic, that sexual feelings are not allowed, and that sexual energy is never exchanged. Sexual energy and sexual feelings are a driving force behind many sessions. This, to me, is why professional domination falls into the category of sex work.

But how these feelings will be expressed is very much subject to both applicable laws and the personal choice of the domina. You can count on the fact that you are not going to have anything resembling traditional sex with the Mistress. I think the grey area lies, however, in certain activities that are frequently represented in SM videos, photos and books - such as various kinds of anal penetration of the male submissive, or body worship that goes beyond the feet and the legs. These things have their place in a private, non-professional dom/sub relationship, but a professional dominant may or may not be willing to engage in them.

She must first and foremost consider her legal risks if she does so - these things are not traditional sex, but in many areas of the country, if a police officer asks her to do these things and she agrees, she is subject to arrest. The actual act need not take place - her agreement is enough. What this means to you is that if you ask a pro domme to engage in these activities with you, she may refuse to see you.

Secondly, she must consider how she feels about such things personally. Even if she lives in an area with more flexible laws, a domme may not wish to commit to including such intimate acts in a session with someone she hasn't even met yet. So she may be vague, or she may just refuse to see you.

It's best to approach such things subtly. It's fine to mention, for example, that you've always thought it would be exciting to have a woman use a strap-on dildo on you. That’s simply sharing a fantasy with the Mistress. Now she has that information, and if she wants to make use of it, she can.

Final note: I am fond of many of my clients and enjoy my sessions with them. But it is a professional relationship, and attempting to take it past those limits is inappropriate. My favorite clients are people who give themselves utterly in the session, thank me warmly afterwards - and leave, without trying to make the relationship something it isn't. Take this for your model.

It's blogger telepathy...or something.

My Least Favorite Phone Call

Ring ring!
Me: Hello?
Caller: (very irate-sounding female voice) Who is this?

Oh shit. I really, really hate it when this happens.

Me: Who's calling, please?
Caller: No, tell me who this is, right now!
Me: (in my very haughtiest tone) I think you must have the wrong number. Goodbye.
Click.

She'll call back, though. Ten seconds later -

Ring ring!
Me: Hello?
Caller: Look, I found this phone number on my boyfriend's cell phone and I want to know who this is!
Me: I have no idea who you are or what you're talking about –
Caller: (interrupts) His name is Joe Blow – do you know him? Is he seeing you?

I don't recognize the name, or the number she's calling from, thank god. I'm glad it's not one of my regular boys. It's probably some poor guy who's curious enough to call me, but who got nervous and hung up when I answered. I get a lot of that. But my number got saved in his outgoing-calls log, and she's checking up on him.

Me: (slowly) I don't know who you are, I don't know your boyfriend, and I want you to stop calling me.
Caller: Why is your number on his phone! I want to know who this is!

Jesus Christ, she's positively shrieking into the phone. I hold it away from my head to keep my eardrums from being shattered. According to Caller ID, this call is coming from an area code in another state. That's a good thing: if this woman was local she'd probably start stalking me or something, the way she's going on.

I know other sex workers also get these type of phone calls. Several of them have techniques they swear by for dealing with it. One of them claims to be an insurance agent, another one pretends to work for a car dealership. If this was a call about a client I knew, I'd be more apt to start spinning some kind of folksy, non-threatening yarn, based on trivia I'd picked up about the guy. "Oh, a girlfriend of mine works with Joe down at the real estate office, and she gave me his number. My husband and I are thinking about buying a timeshare in Mexico, and she said ya'll had one. We just wanted to ask – have ya'll had any problems drinking the water down there? Because those salesmen, they won't tell you about stuff like that, and we don't want to be – you know – having a problem, especially with the kids and all…I'd left Joe a message and he must have tried to call me back."
But with nothing to build on, trying to concoct a plausible story seems like a real long shot. Besides, I hate lying. The minute you lie to someone, you become emotionally involved with them, and I don't want to get involved with either one of these people.

She continues to harangue me without seeming to draw breath, bouncing back and for the between demands for my identity and telling me what a low-life piece of scum her beloved boyfriend is. After about sixty seconds she notices that I've stopped speaking.

Caller: Hello? Hello?

I say nothing.

Caller: I know you're there! Tell me who this is!

I still say nothing. It seems like the best solution. If I hang up, she'll just call back. I could let it go to voicemail, but that'll give her more information than I want her to have – like my name, for starters.
This woman sounds rather young - not as savvy as other suspicious lovers who've called me. I remember one woman who called and asked, "Do you do incall or outcall?"
Her flat, hard tone of voice tipped me off. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."
She wasn't fooled. "I know what you are. If I find your phone number on my phone bill again, I'll call the police and report you."
Report me for what? I thought. Being attractive to your partner? Lady, if you think the police don't know about me, you're crazy. They know about everybody. We have ads in the paper, for god's sake.

It's not that I can't feel some sympathy for a woman who, underneath the bluster, is scared. I do. But I don't break up couples. None of my clients who have wives/girlfriends has ever left their partner for me, and none ever will, because I wouldn't allow any of them to become emotionally involved with me to the extent where that would seem like a reasonable idea. I am not the problem in someone else's relationship, and I'm not willing to take the blame for someone else's fears, be they based on reality or imagination. If you're angry with your lover, yell at him, not me.

Are they cheating? Is it infidelity even if one doesn't have sex? I don't know. I know these boys are keeping their time with me a secret. They tell me their partners don't share their interest in BDSM, but they feel it's better to stay in the relationship, and satisfy their desire for kink elsewhere. I'm polyamorous, so I understand that while their partners don't fulfill this particular need, that doesn't mean they don't love them and want to be with them. I wish they felt they could be honest, but I have to respect their choices regardless. Who am I to judge? I haven't been hitched to someone for twenty-plus years, with kids and a mortgage and 401K and a shitload of shared history, both good and bad. I have no idea what I'd do in their circumstances. I'll leave the slick superficial snap-judgments to Dr. Phil.

This caller, though, is sounding more like a candidate for Jerry Springer. I lay the phone down on my desk and listen as her voice, rendered tolerable by distance, clicks and hisses on. Gradually it stops. The display switches from "End" to "Menu", indicating she's hung up. I wait to see if she'll call back.

She doesn't. Thank god. I pick up the phone and save the number into my phone book as: IRATEGF.
But the phone beeps admonishingly at me.
"IRATEGF" ALREADY EXISTS. REPLACE?
Christ. Okay, let's try IRATEGF2.
SAVED.
If only it were just that easy.

A Near Goddess Experience

You know you're a seasoned professional when conversations like this don't throw you.

Ring ring!
Me: Hello?
Caller: Namaste, Beautiful Goddess.

I am deeply suspicious. I've taken yoga classes, so I know what "nah-mah-stay" means. But you see, gentlemen, when a potential new client calls me and we talk, what I'm doing is assessing him to see if he's going to fit smoothly into my system. So when I pick up the phone, and I expect the person on the other end to say hello, and instead they give me a Hindu greeting...Well, it makes me wonder in what other ways this person might not be what I expect – or want. The lesson is: do not strive to be unusual in your initial approach to professional ladies like myself. At this stage of the game, your manner should indicate to us that you will be a reassuringly familiar experience. Wait until later to start being unique.

Me: Namaste. Can I help you?
Caller: I have been reading your column and mediating about you for some time, Oh Goddess, and I wish to come to you so that our souls can be one.

Hmmnn, I don't recall "soul uniting" being on my published list of kinky specialties. I don't think this one's going to be a keeper. However, we'll keep an open mind about this for a little while longer. One would hate to throw out the pervert with the bathwater over what might be a purely semantic issue.

Me: Well, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. My name is Mistress Matisse. I'm a dominatrix. Is that what you're looking for?
Caller: You are the earthly embodiment of The Supreme Goddess. I wish to serve you.
Me: O-kay…So, if I saw you, exactly how is it that you would serve me?
Caller: I would anoint your feet and kiss them clean, Oh Goddess.
Me: That sounds nice. What else?
Caller: I wish to enter into a sacred space with you, Oh Goddess, and be purified by your whip. And then, when I have proved myself worthy, I beseech you to allow our souls to join together in ecstasy.

I consider what he's said. This "Goddess" thing he's into is not my usual style, but I might be able to work with it. There's that bit about souls joining together in ecstasy, though – that's worth clarifying.

Me: You do realize I am not a full-service escort, don't you?
Caller: Yes, Oh Goddess, you who are the source of all power, I know that I am but an unworthy slave who must never raise his eyes above your divine feet.

Well, he's going to have to raise his eyes above my feet at some point, or he may fall down my stairs.

Me: What's your name?
Caller: Clifford, Oh Goddess.

I have to hold the phone away for a moment because I'm giggling. Clifford? I mean, it's a perfectly nice name, I just would have expected something like – Ayodhya. Or Jafar. Something a bit more in keeping with this half-Eastern-spirituality, half-Goddess-worship kink he's got going on. But no matter.

Me: So, Clifford, you do know that my fee is $250 dollars for a one-hour session?

There's a pause. Oh, see, here it comes, I thought.

Caller: My Goddess, I wish to offer you tribute, but I am very poor.

Figures the religious type would be broke, doesn't it? This guy's problem is that he doesn't have his own television show. He's not the first one to call me and plead poverty in the hopes of a discount. However, these kinds of charitable donations are not tax-deductible.

Me: (in a pleasant but unencouraging tone) Oh, that's too bad.
Caller: Oh my Goddess? Your slave would ask you a question.
Me: Go ahead.
Caller: Does the Goddess permit her slaves to make their tribute by credit card?

I toy with telling him he could offer me cattle and casks of wine, just to see what he'd say, but he shows every sign of being dead serious about this Goddess thing, so I skip it. The last thing I need is some guy showing up on my doorstep with a heifer and a couple of cases of chardonnay.

Me: No, the Goddess requires cash.
Caller: Oh Gracious Goddess, would you be willing so allow your slave to visit you for a lessor tribute?

Part of me is strongly tempted to blast him with some Goddess-y indignation. "Offer ME lessor tribute, will you, puny mortal! For that, you shall be chained to a rock so that crows can pluck out your liver! Mwah ha ha ha haaa!"
Jesus, this schtick of his is infectious. Stay focused, Matisse.

Me: No, Clifford, I can't do that, I'm afraid.
Caller: (makes sound of distress) Oh Beautiful Goddess, I am forced to delay my visit to pay you homage.
Me: That's a shame. Well, Clifford, call me back when you're ready
Caller: Oh Goddess, may I meditate about you in the meantime?

Meditate, huh? I've never heard it called that before.

Not that it'll have any impact on US obscenity trials, but still, it's nice to see that someone's being reasonable about such things.
Canadian BDSM videomaker Steve Sweet is off the obscenity hook…

Hmmmnn, maybe I should be marketing my video more heavily in Canada.

(Note: In this essay, I am absolutely not talking about any of my very dear personal friends and acquaintances.)

News Flash: I'm Not A Guy

Now, don't get me wrong. I like women. (Why, I'm one myself.) But there's a certain breed of woman who really gets on my nerves, and it's because she treats me like a guy. By that I mean, she flirts with me like she would a guy, and she expects me to respond to her like a man would.

I remember one encounter I had with such a woman. She was a stranger to me, but it was obvious she was a sex bomb among the Y-chromosome crowd. We were having a casual chat at a party when she confided in me about her newfound interest in BDSM – specifically, BDSM with women. Hmmnn, I wonder why you're telling me this? Whoops, strike that. I know why you're telling me this.

It would have been difficult not to know. She was doing the whole routine: staring into my face and batting her eyes, trailing her finger around the (low) neckline of her blouse, running her hands up and down the sides of her body, and of course, the hair toss. When she talked, she spoke in husky tones and larded her remarks with double-entendres, and when I talked, she hung on my words and laughed immoderately at the faintest suggestion of wit in my remarks. She was damn good at it, I have to give her that. It was a picture-perfect example of a heterosexual mating call.

Only one problem: I'm not a heterosexual. More specifically, I'm not a heterosexual man. But clearly Ms. Sex Bomb expected me to respond like one, i.e., to jump at the chance to have intimate access to admittedly pretty body. I'm sure she was frustrated and confused when I excused myself and went to talk to someone else, but it seemed unkind to let her go with her come-hither poses and gestures when they left me cold.

(When I think about it, it doesn't seem very flattering for a man to be treated like a Pavlovian dog who'll drool at the first tinkle of a pretty woman's bell. It's certainly not a universal male response. But a lot of them do seem to fall right into it, as anyone who's ever been in a strip club can testify to. The power of testosterone, I suppose.)

I admit to a brief flash of temptation with Ms. Sex Bomb – but I doubt it would have been the kind of scene she was thinking about.

You see, I did a scene when I was quite young, and rather raw, that made a lasting impression on me. It was between me and two extremely hot lesbian women – one butch, and one femme. It was our first scene together - they would go on to become my Master and Mistress. (Oh yes, I've been there.)

I was quite attracted to them and I had been doing my damnedest to flatter and beguile them since we'd met. They were both very appealing – but the femme was an absolute knockout, with big green eyes, thick red hair and a finely boned face. On the night of our date, I remember looking at her and thinking, This is the first time I've ever been with a woman who, may, actually, be more beautiful than I am.

And she must have read my mind, because she leaned forward to where I was on my knees in front of her, grabbed a handful of my hair at the nape of the neck and held my face close to hers. "Now listen to me," she said. "Let's get one thing straight. I know that you're used to getting your way with butches and with boys just because you're a hot babe. But those games don't work with me, so don't go shaking your ass or pouting your lips or batting your big brown eyes at me. I know all the tricks – I do them myself. I know exactly what they mean, and they don't mean shit. So don't go there."

And I thought, "Holy shit, she's on to me. Oh, fuck, am I in trouble." Looking back, I'm sure I was exactly as unsubtle in my flirtations with them as Ms. Sex Bomb was with me. It wouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to see that I was very accustomed to manipulating people with my looks and charm. I learned a lesson that night: don't kid a kidder. And don't vamp a vamp.

I've given her speech a few times myself since then, to pretty, flirty women I was holding by the scruff of the neck. They all gave me back a wide-eyed stare of alarm – which is exactly what I wanted. And for the women I've chosen to be with, that warning was enough. They dropped the schtick.

But when I considered doing a scene with Ms. Sex Bomb, I thought: Even calling her on the act wouldn't be enough – she's a hard case. I'd have to go further. I could wash off her makeup, scrap back her hair, and make her wear a baggy, ugly smock – that might snap her out of that "sexy-babe" attitude. And who knows, maybe once I stripped away all those calculated poses and sexy lines, I might actually get to someone more real, someone who could truly interest me.

Or maybe not. I walked away.

I keep looking at various pictures of this charming contraption and thinking, "I've got to get one of those made." I tried one out once at a leather conference a couple of years ago, and it's quite the experience. The even, constant pressure all over your body - it's like being underwater. And you really can't move, either. It's trippy.
So one of my projects over the next few months is to talk to a local latex clothes designer and see if she can get me the rubber required. Then it's just a matter of getting her and my carpenter together to fit it to a frame. A specialty toy, to be sure, but I have to surprise my boys on a regular basis or they'll get complacent.

I got an email from some unknown guy today, with a URL in it. The sender wrote, (sic)

will U please treet me lik this?

Now, I hate one-line emails anyway. If you're going to email me – and you want an answer - do it in a proper letter form and for god's sake, sign a name to it. It doesn't have to be your real name, but give me something to address you by.

So there's no way I'm going to bother with someone who has managed to cram that many mistakes into just seven simple words. But I was mildly curious about the link, so I went and looked at the page.

It's an ad for a Mistress who does phone dominance. And to say that her style is rather…different from mine - well, it's like saying that rapper Lil' Kim has a rather different musical style than, say, Norah Jones.

This is a clip from the page…

"Prepare to be brainwashed and conditioned to the point that your every move and every decision requires MY APPROVAL. Once I get in your head, there is no escape from the evil that is Mistress (name removed). Without Me, you are nothing! At least giving Me every dollar you have will give your life SOME meaning. you're a worthless LOSER, a sick perverted PIG and I plan to exploit your weaknesses to get what I WANT. If you have to work as a fry boy at a burger joint for a second job then you WILL if that's what I command. I CARE ABOUT GETTING ALL YOUR MONEY, I DO NOT CARE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU OR YOUR FAMILY!"

This certainly isn't the first time I've seen this kind of ad copy for dominatrixes. There must be a market for this attitude, or else they wouldn't be doing it. (The sender of this particular email does not seem to me like a client with the potential to be terribly lucrative, but hey, maybe I'm being a snob.)

And doing phone stuff is obviously different than in-person sessions. I can see where you'd have to amp up the attitude a bit.

But….Eeuuw. When I read that, I feel like I image vanilla people feel when they look at any BDSM text or imagery. It just seems so profoundly negative to me. I could not do a scene where I was really throwing that kind of energy at someone. I'm not that good an actress, and if there was ever someone I really felt that way about, I would not see him as a client. To me, if I truly had the attitude towards my clients that's portrayed in the ad copy above, I wouldn't feel any better about myself than I did about them. How could I?

I've done scenes - at the client's request - where I pretended to be angry, although I suspect I wouldn't always win an Oscar for my performance. What works best for me is if my client and I structure the role-play around something I can tap into some genuine personal anger about. One of my favorites: The strict Human Resources Director dealing with a male employee who's been sexually harassing his female co-workers. Even though I know it's a game, the concept of sexual harassment pisses me off, and I can focus that generalized outrage onto this nasty boy in front of me who's been groping his unwilling cubicle-mate.

By that logic, if you really wanted me to get pissed, I suppose wearing a John Ashcroft mask during the scene would be the way to go.

So, the "righteous indignation" style of anger? Mmm, yeah, I can get there, if someone asks. But sheer vitriolic acid? Nope.

Verbal humiliation play certainly has its place in BDSM…How many times have I called some bent-over boy a "dirty little slut" and watched him wriggle in mingled embarrassment and excitement? But just as there are physical lines you don't cross in BDSM, I think there are mental and emotional lines that shouldn't be crossed, too.