When I first came to New York, I showed up with just a backpack to be on the Maury Povitch show, some episode about how opposites attract. I lied and said I was really attracted to short men just as an excuse to get flown in. And I loved it here and so I looked in the help wanted section for social workers and it was retarded--like $17,000 a year. So what're you gonna do? Work in a retail store? That's mental prostitution. I'd rather be a real prostitute and make some cash and buy things and go places and experience things than prostitute myself dealing with people I don't like. It's absolutely retarded the number of people who do stuff they hate. Two weeks paid vacation and all. It's a fucking joke.

So I looked in the Yellow Pages under "domination" or something like that. I contacted Ava Norman, who's very big. She's like the first really big dominatrix in New York. Very well-known. And she loved me right away. So I got work through her. And then I started working for another dungeon as well. I'm currently with two places: The Taurel Institute and The Den Of Iniquity. The numbers are (212) 974-7460 and (212) 229-2149, respectively, in case you're curious.

There's lots of vocational training for this. They don't just send you in not knowing anything. There's practical training--learning the things to do--how to flog, how to do bondage, various torture techniques. They're very interesting, the things that you can do, things you wouldn't think of--you know, cock and ball torture. Who normally thinks of that sort of thing, right? You have to learn how to do them. You have to learn how to torture nipples, how to tie knots. You have to become educated in all facets. It's just like any other job: you have to know how to do it. It would be insane not to know how to do it.

You also have to read books on the psychology of it. That's actually the most important thing. The psychological training is ninety percent of it--and it's the part that interests me most. Domination isn't just about flogging. It can be going through cross-dressing transformations, it can be infantilism, foot and leg worship--all sorts of role playing. It's not like you just come in and get beaten. The psychological part of it is about reaching into someone's mind to do something that they may feel ashamed or nervous about. Finding out what they really want but aren't able to say. It's about why a person wants something. It's about who they are and who you are--you know, the dynamics of control, why they're letting you do this. You have to be empathetic. It's all about intimacy and cruelty mixed together. While you're being hard, you have to know how to be soft, too.

The two dungeons where I work are private places in business offices. On the outside, they'd probably look the same to you as any corporate office. And on the inside, I'm making about the same per hour as a good attorney. (Laughs.) Of course, I don't get paid unless the customer shows up, so the more people that come, the better I do, which is a little different from an attorney. But I'm doing very well. The house takes a good portion of the money, but they also handle the collection. There's a person at the reception area who does it. Money never passes our hands, because if it's an undercover police officer, we can't have our fingerprints on the bills.

The dungeons have decorated rooms. Very private and fully equipped. Both places have the typical hard-core rooms, all done up in black, and then the other Martha Stewart-ish rooms. They call them the soft rooms and the dungeons. They're both about equally popular. Some people want to be flogged and go all out, and other people want to just sit down and talk. Many people aren't into the masochistic side of it. A lot just want to talk about torture stuff but not necessarily do it. And some people want to sit and chit chat about nothing in particular. They just want someone to talk to.

Some guys want to be jerked off. I tell them to go screw themselves--they're not going to get jerked off by me. It's not a sex service. We don't suck anybody's cock, we don't beat 'em off, we don't do anything like that. They're perfectly free to release themselves, but I'm not there for their direct sexual satisfaction.

All my customers are men. Women can be naturally dominated by men at any time. They just have to go to a bar and they can find a guy who will dominate them. (Laughs.) So I see a lot of men. I call them clients. Or patients. Like we're the therapists. Sometimes I definitely feel like I'm a counselor.

Most of my clients are repeats. If it's their first time, they come in and look at portfolios. We have our personalities and photos and our preferences in the book, so they can choose who they want to work with. You're not supposed to socialize with them, but occasionally, if someone's on my intellectual level, I'll go out to dinner with them. You know, if I feel I'd be friends with them regardless of the situation. Like if we'd met at another place.

My favorite thing about the job is seeing people who put themselves on the line. I feel they do themselves a credit to come forth and say what it is that they really want, even though such a thing might seem ridiculous, might be something which society considers a taboo, or disgusting. They make themselves vulnerable, and I think that takes a great deal of courage, and I'm always impressed with people who get over that hurdle and do something that's hard but really brave. I don't look down on them. I applaud them for their efforts.

I think it's all about balance for most of these guys. I mean, a lot of submissives in my world are dominant in the outside world. They have high-paying positions, importance and decision-making. They're looking for balance. And vice versa, if someone doesn't have a lot of power in society, they can come in and dominate the submissive.

People can request a switch session, but normally a person comes in for a submissive session or a dominant session and most of my customers want to be submissives. It is possible to get a psycho who just suddenly turns into a dominant. You know, like unannounced, they go crazy. That doesn't come up very often, but it's happened to me once. It was scary and violent. Not a fun thing. After freaking out, the guy didn't wanna pay. He said he was a police officer--he wasn't. But, you know, it's the sex industry. And sex workers are often victims of violence. Because you're dealing with people's psyches. And you're also dealing with some assholes out there. You have to be very careful. But they have security guards at my dungeons. Very good security. I feel pretty safe.

I certainly never let go and lose control myself. A person who loses control of themselves shouldn't be in a controlling situation. That would be dangerous. You can't start whipping someone and lose control. You can get caught up in the energy of it, but you can't personally lose control. And besides, things that seemed shocking before seem normal now. You just adapt.

I am constantly striving to improve. Learning new techniques, new things. It's never really bored me because so many people are so twisted. They're always coming up with new scenarios and ideas. I can't lie and say it's always exciting, because sometimes it is dull. You know, like cross-dressers who want to be dressed up and transformed and called a slut and taken advantage of. That's gotten kind of old. Some people come in with the same scenarios week after week. I'm like, "Come on! Think of another one." Of course, you can't say that. It's not my place to decide their fantasies. I can only make suggestions.

But some are good. One guy wanted me to take Polaroids of him in cross-dressing outfits, and I was supposed to extort him for money and get him to admit it was him. That was fun. Then there's a wrestling guy who comes in once a week--he's a plumber, which is surprising. I mean, he's a bit of a Guido, and most of my clients are suits. And he always has pretty amusing scenarios, like things for me to beat the shit out of him for. Like, I'm a girl applying for a job on a construction site and he tells me that girls have no place on a construction site. He says I'm very pretty, why don't I try lap dancing, and I try to reason with him, and he says, no, no, no, so then I, like, have to prove to him how just because I'm a girl I can do the job and I, like, thrash him. Or like, last week, I was the boss and he was this guy who wants a raise, and so I tell him, "Well, if you want the raise, you're going to have to wrestle with me every Friday." And he protests and says no, he doesn't want to, and then I, like, beat the crap out of him until he agrees. Scenarios like this. They're pretty funny.

My job's warped me. I mean, I'm weird. I'm a freak by society's normal standards. And I don't care. Anyone who's involved with me has to be into the scene themselves. It's not important to me to be normal. I run away from normality. Mediocrity sucks. I don't want to be part of that structured American lifestyle--boy does this, girl does that. But, you know, you need support. It's important to have friends. It's important to have people understand. And a lot of people don't understand. A lot of people think I'm a whore. Or that it's weird. They ask stupid things. "Do you fuck them?" No, idiot.

People don't understand or accept, and that's what's hard--people treating you like you're a whore, saying stupid things. I get tired of it. I have to be really selective about who I tell. American society is so sexually backward and unaccepting still. That's the hardest part of my life and my work. But that's also what makes my job exist. Because if society wasn't so repressed then I wouldn't get paid. People would feel free to explore these things and they wouldn't need to pay someone exorbitant amounts of money to get dressed up and put on makeup. It's all about guilt. If people didn't feel guilty, it wouldn't exist.

In my better client relationships, I absolutely feel like I do something that's important. I help people grow. I help them develop by helping them understand themselves better, by helping them learn to communicate better, and most importantly, by helping them learn what they desire, sexually, emotionally--and then I help them have the courage to ask for it. I really contribute to people's lives, make them better, happier people because they've explored the full range of options, emotions, psychological terrains open to them. That's the counselor in me. It's a great feeling.

I am a lifestyle mistress, which means I am someone who incorporates S&M into their life, whose own sexuality lends itself to this kind of lifestyle. Someone who thinks she needs this for her own sexual life. It isn't something I just do on weekends. It is me. I mean, I was this way before the job. Truly good mistresses are lifestyle mistresses. Because if it's just someone who does it for money, they won't be as interested in the dynamics of it, the psychology of it, the technique. It'll just be something to do. People searching for a good mistress should definitely find someone for whom it is a lifestyle.

I want to become a very well-known dominatrix. Then I can specialize. That should be everyone's goal: eliminating things you don't particularly like to do and focusing on what you like to do. I like flogging and cross-dressing and role-playing. If you're well-known and you've got your regular staff of clients, then you're set. I wouldn't want my own dungeon. It's way too expensive. I'd just like a bunch of sugar daddies. Who wouldn't?

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