The Trade

I

He probably didn’t know what she was doing (or maybe she made sure he knew) when Lady would run out to the can with one of her dildos. She would come out with her personal dildo... black with an undulating contour, rippled with black veins. The varnish was slightly less shiny at the end from its visceral explorations. She would put it under my nose getting my upper lip wet. It was for me to understand that one of those visceral explorations had just taken place. With her boyfriend. Then she would dart into the bathroom and I would return to my cleaning. Luckily boyfriend was relatively neat and did not purposely leave heaps of dishes crusted over, as was Lady’s habit. I imagined the event in a journal entry from the week before. In the entry I spoke about the prospect of cleaning boyfriend’s apartment while they played and screwed in the bedroom:

“...She did say that he’s kinky. And ‘would be willing to perform with me in front of the slaves’. What she meant was that he agreed to have sex with her in his bedroom while the slave cleared up his place. Boyfriend probably needed a little coaxing I imagine since he’s not into BDSM. I asked Lady what she thought about that and she said that she liked his refusal to be dominated. I suppose with slaves just keeling over on command it gets too easy. She likes to get them before they are broken.

But to clean his place... that could be my own moment of breaking. Wash his dishes and wipe the pubes off the toilet, and arrange the Maxim magazines and tap out the hair from the electric razor. Then clean his floors; maybe have to ask him (in a maids outfit?) where certain supplies are located. And the walls would be thin. Or maybe they wouldn’t make any noise. She would come out brushing strands to the side. And I’d be stuck sheepishly holding the sponge-mop. ‘Time to go’ she’d say and I wouldn’t really know what he looks like because of the no-eye-contact rule. I’d shuffle behind her and into the street. Or maybe they’d just send me home. She’d decide to stay over or they would be going out...”

That was my entry. It turned out that boyfriend is not really the Maxim type and had no electric razor. Nor any other razor. Maybe his saloon waxed and shaved him after a careful shampoo and manicure, or maybe he was naturally hairless. Even though I wasn’t supposed to look him in the eyes I could still see him clearly. Very white and svelte, almost transparent the way his own attire blended in with the apartment’s decor. The furniture was very angular as was the framed art I was instructed to dust. Lots of glass instead of wood. Being Taurus, I like things you can see – things that age, earth things.

So there I was in this expensive apartment. Rather then a maids outfit, I was naked except for a pair of nipple clamps securely doing what they are supposed to do, which is make your knees weak. Almost all the various forms of torture bestowed upon me somehow localize to the knees. I’m being whipped; the flesh is bruising as the soft inside buds up. The belted ass puckers proudly to meet the next blow and the pain is a flash that channels to the brain, gathers up behind the eyes, and rebounds back down to the knees. In some it rebounds to the tongue and is expressed in pathetic sobs and obnoxious yelps. I’m glad that is not me. If only those knees could be trained. During the cleaning I would have to sit down and sweat. She had them screwed to about 4/5 and my nipples were a deep purple by 1 hour. It was ok for me to sit down because, like I said, the apartment was relatively clean (much cleaner than my own apartment) and there were no stated rules about sitting. The prospect of a gratuitous thrashing came to mind so I stood up and sauntered back to the counter. I could still smell Lady’s perfume from when she came over with her toy. I grazed a damp cloth over the immaculate counter-top, glancing at my watch occasionally, and at the hallway to the bedroom. I could only hear an occasional laugh by Lady and the distant noise of their heavy metal.

I noticed a stretch of silence and then, as if my attention were prescient, I heard the opening of a door. Lady strode out of the dark hallway, down a few marble steps into the living room and toward the door. Boyfriend followed, also neatly dressed. I saw this from my silent perspective in the kitchen which was separated only by an open bar top.

“We’re going slave,” she said and was out the door. I dropped the sponge and went to the closet to get my things. They were neatly hung there which was considerate. It would be easier if I sat down to put them on. Boyfriend just stood there and I realized it wouldn’t matter that I sat down in front of him. I made sure that I sat on his leather couch to put on my underwear. I eased my striped buttocks at various stages of healing onto the cool white leather.

“Get your naked bloody ass off my white couch,” he said.

“Listen bub, I’ll be out of your way in a second.” I began unbuttoning my shirt in order to thread my arms through. Boyfriend stood tongue-tied, thinking. Maybe reviewing the events of the day, trying to figure out where he fucked up.

II

When my Lady is sad, I see her sadness in little peaks and pretend not to see it. My Lady must be strong; she must be superior to the throes of life, to the disappointments. How will I believe in her dominance when it is broken at the breakfast table, withdrawn into winter? But I see sadness in her life and in my own life. It is loudest starting January, but still audible in December, behind the hum of holiday squabble. Its depth in Lady elicited a type of respect that one might bestow upon a great artistic composite.

I drove back from boyfriend’s Boston flat and midway it started to snow. The ride was silent so the click of the occasional hearty flake was audible. This is what sadness sounds like today.

‘You will make me a bath and some dinner at home’, she said.

Back in Marlboro, I drew the bath water and lit some candles lining the tub. I put some bubble-soap into the crash of water under the fosset. While the tub was filling I carefully broke off the stems from some semi-skunk I had brought. I used a Vogue to catch the chunks of bud and sift away the seeds. Part of a matchbook cover became the filter. A loving lick down the adhesant and it was done. I placed the joint and lighter in an ashtray next to the tub and turned off the water.

‘Lady’ I said. ‘The bath is drawn’.

She entered a moment later in her robe, which was made of a deep blue silk. I delicately removed her robe and hung it on the door. She looked down to indicate her slippers. I crouched down and cupped her calves and slid off each slipper. She was wearing only her black thong now, and I was still kneeling. She stepped forward and pressed my head into her belly and said, take off the thong. I used two hands while her own remained on my head. I placed the thong in the hamper.

“You can hold onto that if you want. Re-acquaint yourself with my smell,” she said. She touched my flesh, pensive, letting her fingers rest before slipping into the frothy water. “Prepare a light dinner now, slave Dimini.”

I withdrew the thong and retreated into the kitchen. Such generosity on the part of Lady touched me deeply. I inhaled the sweet acrid smell of the thong. I inhaled deeply and felt like a very lucky slave. In the kitchen I could smell the perfume of the marijuana. I felt warm and tried to remember something and thought about how I would make Lady happy. It is nice, I realized, that Lady would have me around even when she was sad. I chopped vegetables. I crushed the garlic into olive oil with the bulbous wooden pestle, adding a bit of vinegar. I cut some focascia and put it into the toaster. Lady entered the room in her robe, her hair wrapped in a towel. She did not mention boyfriend to me and I wondered what had disappointed her so as I placed the vegetarian dinner in front of her.

“Lay down here,” she said indicating the wooden floor beneath the table with her long manicured nails, “and lick my toes.”

I lay down under her chair and she dangled her crossed leg over my lips. I strained upward and cupped her toes gently with my tongue as she enjoyed her dinner. When she finished she slapped my face with her feet, “put these in the sink and fetch the trilogy,” which was her name for a chain connecting three adjustable clamps.

“I shall punish you for the stupidity of all men”.

I returned and she was lying on the couch watching a sci-fi flick she had rented. She lazily reached over to screw the prongs into place, still trying to watch the tube.

“Get down, slave,” she said annoyed. “I can’t see.”

She finished with the second nipple clamp, me supine on the floor along the length of the couch. She pulled up the fleshy underside of my cock with her nails and fastened the third prong. She screwed it tightly, laughing at something humorous in the movie. I was not paying attention to the movie, though in general it was usually allowed for me to watch too. She had the chain pulled taught, stretching me out, letting more blood rush under my cock-ring. Lady pulled on the chain with various tensions, the thin skin pulling up over the engorged veins. She reigned in the loose end of the chain in increments throughout the length of the movie forcing me to arch my back in order to alleviate the burning pain.

“Back down,” she said with a powerful yank that sent a collage of colors and lights afire in my brain. The clamps were too tight to pull off, despite the record-breaking tensions Lady was administering. Did she know that she was pushing me to a new plateau of control and pain tolerance? She didn’t seem to notice, and it wasn’t my nature to piss and moan like some of the weaker more self-involved slaves. The wool rug under me became damp with my perspiration and I realized that the movie was over and rewinding in the VCR. I careened my neck over the edge of the couch to find my Lady dead asleep, the chain gathered up into a ball in her palm. Her lips were slightly parted and a curl of her light hair brushed her chin peacefully. I knew that I must remain chained and suffering on the floor until she awoke. There would be no disturbing such grace and beauty deep in sleep’s embrace.

III

What happened next was the dissolution of harmony, so to speak. The dark, short days of winter weekends framed my visits, and we began to know each other. I first discovered Lady during the break between the 1st and 2nd semesters of medical school. Lost in the web of internet BDSM pornography, I came across a personal-ad site. I surfed through the Dommes posted and decided to join. My ad ran as follows:

“30 yo Mediterranean derived med student with extreme focus and a good body. I’m an avid athlete and work out or play sports daily. I’m hoping to meet a dominant woman who is comfortable with disciplining a submissive man. My own experience in this realm is limited to 2 such relationships. They were both very invigorating and included wax play, nipple torture, bondage, crops, orgasm denial, as well as other types of domination over me. I am serious in this quest, so I hope that you will consider my potential.”

With my ad posted and my checking account $25 poorer, I could reply to other ads. I came across 2 that impressed me. One was this Mistress who wanted to tour in national corporeal punishment tournaments. She wanted someone to abuse and humiliate, no strings attached. I sent her a reply. The other ad was Lady’s. She advertised herself as the ‘sensual’ Domme and there seemed to lack an edge that I was looking for. All the same, the ad was dominant and the photo stared out of the screen with these green, almost oriental eyes. I sent off a supplicating application that explained why it is I seek a beautiful dominatrix. Here it is:

“Because I am bored stiff with the coy coquettish birds that flock to the social outings which have plagued my life. Because I am terribly undisciplined and self-indulgent to a sickening degree and DESERVE a strict working over. Because Women are innately superior creatures, having as they do, the unrelenting forces of Earth and Spirit wrapped up in the magical Egg and Womb (whereas the biological correlate in males is indiscriminately shed into tissue paper and down the can). Because I am in control for too much of my life and find such control burdensome. Because Female Supremacy is erotic and real and has the entire Muslim world shaking in its boots. Then there are the myriad reasons (probably the true reasons) which work below the surface such as the influence of Gene and Mother and the forces of self-destruction and self-debasement which to me represent the burning flame of Truth as to my significance (lack of) in the course of things.”

She saw right through the bullshit but sent me a link to her site. She could tell a pain freak, boot-boy when she came across one. Anyway, I was to partake in pics and videos of some sort. Of course there is always a catch. Pay hundreds at the dungeon, or lend a useful body to film. Her site was just jpg’s at that point, but impressive nonetheless. One under ‘leg worship’ had Lady poised on the throne, gartered legs crossed, peering domineeringly down at the camera. Under ‘metal head’ she posed in a ripped anthrax t-shirt, cattail whip stretched taut. There were also several lighter pics with her stretched out on the ground looking directly at the lens, girlishly playful-like. Only a couple of pics with actual slaves, hooded and dressed in maid outfits or else just hooded, with oceans of belly spilling out and spoiling the scene.

Along with the link she sent me, the body of her text read: “hmmmm...u ARE going to pose in pictures with me & perhaps video! Correct?! u may wear a mask or hood... start looking for one if you require that your face be covered.”

Our first actual meeting was at a posh marble restaurant with a separate hookah room. Stern white robed waiters scoured the place but Lady was unhappy with the service. I promised her a vegetarian selection, thinking that this joint, being Indian-French fusion, would have some plant selection from the Indian part. That was not the case, so she demanded an original item, a chef’s creation if you will. She had me sit next to her rather than across, and sometimes she caressed my leg. I was stuporous with lust and admiration and fear. At that meeting she explained that after the expensive dinner (she negged my initial more cost-effective selection) we would be going to her boyfriend’s home. She had warned me of this in one of the many IM sessions that had transpired previously. I was very impressed that she was serious, and that she trusted me. I found out later that it was just a test of my reaction. It eventually did happen, as I had painstakingly recounted earlier, but only after several spectacles of total submission, which consisted of belting, cropping, trampling, and ball busting.

As time passed, and our relationship slowly dissolved, we got to know each other somewhat. She learned of my x girlfriend who remained my best friend. Laura was totally against the scene because she was abused growing up and saw it as being exploitive. I asked her, what isn’t? Lady was not happy about encroachments on her property and became curt when Laura called my cell phone. I didn’t care about Lady’s other slaves and this enraged her. I refused to pose with other slaves in the scene. The part of Lady that had exerted such incredible sexual control over me, that elusive spirit which reduced me to a pet willing to endure anything, became an ordinary and understandable object.

I see Lady as split in two, able to blend the parts according to whim. The dominant sex goddess part is one, somewhat newly formed, her first foray into the scene being only two years prior as a commissioned employee at a dungeon. The other part of her being is a composite of several related domains. She has several earthy-crunchy traits: into herbal remedies, pot included (complete with marijuana leaf key chains and lighter cases), drives a truck (which also falls under the bad-ass category traits, to be detailed below), has a farmer daddy, who had not come off as the most endearing gentleman, and a mamma with a penchant for melodrama. They lived on a farm complete with chicken wire with chickens pecking around inside and a lot of crop... soy, which they never tasted since it was shipped off to the orient (now, years later, she drinks soy which is another earthy-crunchy sort of thing to do). Also, she does not support the killing of animals, and excludes all meats and leathers from her eating and whipping reveries.

As for the bad-ass traits, she has a pair of shit-kicking work boots, drinks beer and sings raunchy Rugby songs under the auspices of ‘steel tits’, hauls around in a big Chevy truck with 50+ feet of rope in the bed (I’ll allow you the luxury of imagining it’s destined use), goes to speed metal concerts and wears anthrax t-shirts. Then there’s this mothering quality which loves my nuzzling up, and once married and took care of a TV guy from India, and believes in pot-pouri and organic beauty aids. There are certain clues that indicate the predominant psychological current. The attire is a biggie. An increase in height (heels) and shininess (vinyl) means the Lady is present. Also indicative of the Lady is a very eerie and powerful aura of seduction. When she is the regular old composite motif she wears jeans and sweatshirts. She is chatty with her southern parlance complete with words like ‘vittles’ and ‘whittling’ and ‘y’all’. And of course there’s her famous temper which is a mix of silence studded with out-lashings of abuse.

As the facts of reality filled in the mystery, I would entertain myself with reveries of the imagination. I dreamed of being a freshman in high school, she’d be the senior. She would use me to explore herself. Kids can be cruel and pure at the same time. With purity of heart a torrent of whipping becomes a dance. Guilt, shame and pity are feeble emotions that interfere with the clarity of the Domme. The slave will take care of such lowly internal groveling. Mass effect, 9 to 5 morality corrupted our world and hung like rags over that perfect latex shininess. Without clarity, the Domme runs the risk of mixing in too much or not enough poison. I told Lady of my ideas. She accused me of topping from the bottom and tried to pull in the reigns. She gave me a rubber cock ring to wear when not in her presence to serve as a reminder. She would not accept a missed weekend and after strike two she decided to upgrade the cock-ring to a something more permanent. I was instructed to arrive on Friday at 7 pm promptly, as per usual.

IV

When I arrived Lady gave me a gift. She smiled and handed me the wrapped box. I cupped the little box in one hand and felt its weight.

“Can I open it?,” I asked.

‘What do you think?’ she said

“I think it’s always safer to ask,” I said and tore away the paper. I opened what I already knew was a jewelry box. A steel, curved bar with a solid ball capping each end sat on the cushioning.

“Looks like miniature bull horns,” I said. I put them up to my forehead.

“Some horns for my little bull,” Lady said. “You will need to wear this at all times. Think of it as a little reminder of whom you belong to. Hold onto it until Monica gets here,” she said. “She’ll pierce it for you. If that’s ok with you....”

Lady looked amused when I nodded in agreement. I knew the question was rhetorical but sometimes I teased her with a pretense of self-determination. I’d say things like “OK, I’ll do that” when she orders me around. It gets on her nerves but she usually lets it slide. I know that she spoils me.

Monica enters. Her eyes are painted black. When she looks directly at you, her face looks very pale by way of contrast. She sticks her fingers under the elastic of her stockings and hoists them up, then swaggers into the room with her mouth open.