The Pleasure's All Mine: Memoir of a Professional Submissive (21 page)

    “Is this seat taken?” I pointed to an empty chair next to Brenda. “No, please,” she gestured for me to join them.

    “Marnie has family back east,” D offered helpfully.
“Oo,
I think I hear Max at the front door! I’ll be back.”

    She gave a quick grin and disappeared into the crowd of her friends. The three of us looked at each other, looked at our hands, scanned the crowd, looked back at each other.
We are so uncomfortable here. Thank God, I found my people.

    “So D told me you guys are from New Hampshire?” I finally said.

    “Yes, Shannon — we know her as Shannon,” D’s dad laughed nervously, “spent most of her childhood with us, then moved out here when she was just eighteen.”

    “And do you like visiting out here, or you like it back home better? If that’s not too personal—”

    “Oh no,” Brenda smiled warmly, “it’s not too personal. It’s fun to visit L.A., but we’re definitely more at home back at, you know, home,” she laughed. “What about you, Marnie? You’re from the east coast originally?”

    “I wish,” I laughed softly, oddly flattered by the idea that I might pass for someone who was. “I grew up out here. My dad’s from Massachusetts, a little ways north of Boston. My favorite cousins live in Woburn, and I’m hoping to visit them in the next couple of months,” I said, thinking I might take a train to Boston for a night or so the next time I went to New York.

    “Oh, that’s great,” Joe said, nodding.

    “Well, I shouldn’t say they’re my
favorite
cousins. I love all my cousins. The ones near Boston are just more like friends, you know, close to my age. We have a good time.”

    “That’s nice that you’re so close to your family.” Brenda reached over and patted my hand. “Not that it’s anyone’s fault, but I know a lot of Shannon’s
other
friends,” she raised her eyebrows and whispered conspiratorially, “seem to come from pretty hard backgrounds. Many of them don’t have any contact with their families at all.”

    “I know. It’s a sad thing,” I said, thinking about how not-nice and not-close my relationship had been with my immediate family before I’d gotten sober. “I’m pretty lucky”

    “So, if you don’t mind me asking, Marnie,” Joe leaned in and spoke quietly, “how did you meet Shannon? I didn’t know she had many friends outside of the uh —
scene
she’s into.”

    “Oh.” For some reason I had thought that D would have told them how we knew each other. “Well, I’m actually — sort of — from that scene, too, I guess you could say,” I finished hesitantly.

    Joe’s and Brenda’s eyebrows flew up simultaneously.

    “But you’re so — normal,” Joe whispered. “I don’t mean to say that there’s anything bad about it,” he added quickly, holding up his hands in a hey-no-judgment-here gesture.

    I laughed, relieved that they wanted to find a polite way to address it just like I did.

    “In fairness, I will say that I’ve met some really decent people in this business and in the broader,” I cleared my throat nervously, “kink scene in general. But I do know what you mean. I probably look more like a librarian than someone who makes a living this way.”

    “So do your parents know?” Brenda obviously still couldn’t believe it.

    “Yeah, they know. Most of the people in my life know, except my little-old-lady Catholic aunts back in Massachusetts,” I said.

    “They weren’t upset when you told them?” Joe asked. “I mean, we never got
angry
at Shannon or threatened to disown her or anything, but it definitely took some getting used to.”

    “I’m still not that used to it.” Brenda shook her head.

    “They didn’t act upset, at least to my face. I guess I should tell you I had a pretty serious drug problem when I was a little younger,” I said, watching their eyes widen in shock a second time. “I think after seeing me struggle to get through that, they just figured as long as I was alive and sober, they weren’t gonna worry too much about anything else. I mean, I’m sure they’ll be glad when I’m not doing this anymore, but they don’t give me a hard time about it.”

    It was a little strange to go from feeling so relaxed with them to knowing they now found me hard to understand. Sometimes I felt like I was both too geeky for the freaks and too freaky for the squares. Joe and Brenda nodded politely, but I think we were all relieved when D came to get me a few minutes later.

    “I have to steal Marnie away from you now. I need to ask her something in
private.”
D gave the last word an exaggerated sensuality and winked at me.

    “It was really nice meeting you both,” I said, and meant it, as I got up from the table.

    “Yes, you too,” Brenda said, grasping my hand warmly in hers.

    “Take care of yourself, Marnie. Be careful,” Joe said with a fatherly tone.

    I turned to follow D into her quiet office upstairs.

    

    

    “I
love
your parents,” I sighed, still touched by how kind they’d been to me. “Thanks for inviting me.”

    “Thank
you,”
D purred. “I like to surround myself with little pleasures, even during work.
Especially
during work,” she giggled, raising her eyebrows at me.

    Now that we were alone together, I was unable to stop myself from hoping that it might have something to do with the mutual chemistry she’d clearly felt during our shoot those few days earlier.

    “Thanks for coming,” D smiled. She stared at me silently for a moment, and finally spoke again. “I really enjoyed playing with you the other day, Marnie. You have a great deal to offer as a submissive, and it was truly a pleasure being on the receiving end of some of it.”

    “Gosh, thank you,” I said, surprised at her directness. I reminded myself that after all, she was a domme.

    “You have a good head on your shoulders,” she went on. “You’re sincere and intelligent, and I have to tell you I really like that you’re sober. I’ve been thinking about you a lot in the last few days.”

    “I’ve been thinking about you, too,” I ventured. “It was kind of hard not to.”

    “Good.” D tilted her head and smiled wide. “I’m so glad to hear that. Because I really want to have a closer relationship with you. I’d like to bring you in as one of the family, so to speak.”

    It wasn’t exactly as thrilling for me as if she’d asked me to go steady. I had always thought that being part of a leather family would grate on me, especially if I was identified as a sub in the group. From what I’d heard, leather families were sort of the kinky lifestylers’ version of Mormon polygamy, complete with formal hierarchies and the general subordination of all members to a single head of the family. Granted, there wasn’t much concern for sinning in leather families, but still I hadn’t ever imagined that set-up as my style. Looking into D’s eyes as she leaned toward me, her lips slightly parted — was she about to say something, or was she about to kiss me? — I re-evaluated my previous opinion in a flash. I already sensed that D viewed me with more respect than I might have received in any male-run group, and I didn’t actually know
that
much about what went on in leather families. Maybe I was being too quick to judge.

    “My current assistant is leaving, you see, moving to San Francisco at the end of the month. It’s a part-time position, only six hours a day, and I’m pretty flexible about which six. You’d usually have weekends off, and I could pay you fifteen dollars an hour, plus bonuses. Any time you’re responsible for booking the space for outside use — Hollywood films, private parties — you get forty percent of the rental fee. You could still do your own sessions as well, and never have to pay a rental fee for that either.”

    She sat back in her chair, seemingly satisfied that she’d sold this job as a great opportunity for me. I was literally struck dumb. She wanted me to be her
secretary?
I thought she had contacted me in the first place because of my growing success as an independent pro sub. Where did she think I’d find thirty hours a week to be her right arm? Wait,
fuck
that. Where did she get the idea that I would even
want
to be her busy little sidekick, even if I
did
have the time? Since when had I indicated a willingness to be absorbed into someone else’s demanding life instead of continuing to work to build up my own? And then the final indignity hit me. I knew there was no way in hell she would ever have floated such an idea past an independent pro domme. No matter what I thought I had felt with D, our roles were fixed as far as she was concerned. People who got turned on by certain things were there to serve, and people who got turned on by other certain things were there to
be
served. I was one, she was the other. No amount of business sense, smarts, or sobriety in common would change that in D’s mind. I took a deep breath, sat up straight, and looked her in the eye.

    “Thanks for the offer, but I’m actually happy doing what I’m doing right now,” I said evenly.

    She looked momentarily flustered. “Well, of course you could still do what you’re doing. I thought I made that clear?”

    “D, I
left
a job as a secretary to get into this work in the first place. It’s just not what I’m looking for. But thanks,” I said again, standing up to leave.

    “Well.”

    From the look on her face, it must have been quite a while since anyone she viewed as submissive had told her anything but
Yes, Mistress.
She didn’t get up, and I didn’t look back. I wasn’t even that mad by the time I got out to my car. I’m sure in her mind she was conferring a great honor on me when she offered to let me work for her. By the time I was home, I was laughing about it.
Can you imagine if she
had
wanted to date you? Talk about high maintenance — the girl can’t even answer her own phones.
So much for my latest daydream. Apparently it wasn’t the X and Y chromosomes, after all, that made a difference in who might be a good match for me and who wouldn’t.

    

    

    
BUSINESS PICKED UP
a little in Los Angeles after I made the video with D. Being mentioned on her Web site as she promoted the new flick seemed to be what was helping. And, in addition to the money and physical satisfaction of being busier, I loved that I got to see Catherine more. She wasn’t the type — and didn’t have the free time — to just hang around chatting aimlessly; she was, however, always happy to answer my questions about anything that came up. I made sure to have a lot of them.

    “Are there any women who have private spaces like yours in New York?” I was waiting for a client to arrive at the dungeon, watching her reorganize the large closet in her office that was filled with fetish clothes.

    “Yeah. One of my best friends has her own place. That’s where I do my sessions whenever I’m back there.”

    Catherine pulled a dark violet, floor-length slip dress off a hanger and put it in a bag marked for dry cleaning. I had really liked Lissette, and the space she shared with Ava was lovely, but I felt more attracted to the idea of renting from other independents. I felt like they were my people now, and the idea of being even more in Catherine’s circle, in particular, by renting from her best friend back east, was too tempting to pass up.

    “Do you think she might let me use her place too when I’m in New York again?”

    “Oh yeah, she’d totally rent to you. You guys would love each other,” Catherine smiled.

    The sight of that smile made me feel a little like swooning. Catherine almost never smiled. It wasn’t like she came across as depressed or cranky; she just wasn’t given to polite and empty gestures of approval. She could even utter her dry laugh without changing her facial expression whatsoever. I liked the effect her smile rationing had. When her mouth spread into a grin that changed her whole face from pretty to breathtaking, it felt like seeing all the cherries line up on a slot machine. It’d be less exciting if it happened every time you slipped a quarter in.

    “I’ll be in session when you get out today, but I’ll tape a note to your bag with my friend’s phone number on it. She goes by Nurse Wolf professionally, but you can call her ‘W’. I’ll ring her up right now so she knows to expect you.”

    I was still dazzled by how nice most of these independent pro dommes were. I realized, of course, that it wasn’t necessarily just out of the kindness of their hearts; clearly anyone who had a private dungeon stood to gain a fair amount of rent money by making me happy at her place. Even so, from Lissette’s flirting to K’s taking me to New York to Catherine’s offer to make introductions, none of these women seemed to be phony or self-serving. All any of them really had to do was just provide a safe, nice place to work and not be an asshole. Anything else was beyond the call of duty.

    I tried not to get carried away with the idea of how wonderful it was now that I was working on my own. I figured the bottom could fall out at any time, like it had at the Dominion, or with K. Yet I remained mostly convinced that I was being cosmically rewarded for taking a chance instead of playing it safe and going back to some dull, straight job.

    

    

    “Hey sweetie!” W threw open the heavy front door and grabbed me in a tight hug. “So good to meet you, finally!”

    “You too,” I laughed as she let me go.

    I had flown into JFK the night before, and my first two sessions of the trip were doubles with W.

    “If you want, you can change in my office.” She pointed to a door behind us. “Or in the bathroom, which is this way.”

    She led me down a long hallway to a small foyer that branched into a kitchen, a dimly-lit dungeon room, and the bright, white bathroom. W was already dressed for our first session when she let me in, decked out in a classic black lingerie set complete with garter belt and stockings. She had the lean, tan, muscular upper body of a surfer girl, and watching her strut down the hallway in front of me felt like being at my own private Victoria’s Secret fashion show. I would have liked W even if she hadn’t been as beautiful as she was, but that didn’t enable me to ignore the superficial stuff. I don’t even know how to say this in an inoffensive way, but her small waist flared into the roundest, most amazing ass I had ever seen on a white woman, never mind a blonde. There was nothing typically blond about her, in fact, from the rear view to her big brown eyes and exotically-chiseled face. Her shoulder-length hair definitely looked like her natural color, though.