Lola: Confessions of an Addict

The grounds were breathtakingly green and immaculately maintained, an unreal oasis on the edge of the desert. Inside the clubhouse, dark wood paneling and black and white photographs lined the walls, and your feet practically sank into the thick, lush carpeting that blanketed the floors like a fairway.

At the front desk, I was greeted by a bubbly young blonde woman in a blindingly white blouse and skirt combination that bore the Meadowlark insignia. She walk me down a long hallway decorated with the portraits of smartly-dressed, middle-aged white men. Even from the inanimate confines of the canvas, these men seemed to exude the sense of effortless authority that comes from dictating the rules of society for decades. At the end of the hallway, the blonde deposited me in a waiting area outside the athletic director's office.

Moments later, the heavy wooden door swung open and a tall, gorgeous man with a granite jawline and glass-blown cheekbones emerged as if from the pages of GQ.

"Good afternoon, Lola," he said, extending a hand. "Magnus Ericsson."

I reached for his hand and he pulled me to my feet.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Ericsson."

He wore a dark blue blazer over a white collared shirt open at the neck. Although his attire was as I had expected, he looked to be in his early 30s, which was considerably younger than the stodgy, paunchy 50-something I had imagined.

"Charming dress," he said, his blue eyes tracing the swell of my chest as he held the door open. "Come inside."

His office was not so different in character from the rest of the clubhouse. Photos of elegant sportsmen engaged in patrician pursuits like tennis, golf, cricket, crew, and polo covered the walls. The room had lush chairs and thickly-upholstered sofas ringing its edges, but the center was dominated by a leather swivel chair behind a large, ornately-carved desk. Wordlessly, Mr. Ericsson walked behind the desk and sank into the chair with languid grace that belied his athletic prowess. From his chair, he waved me forward, indicating that he intended me to stand before him.

"Lola Andrews," he said, lifting a piece of paper from his desk. "It says here you were the state champion in girls' singles this year, correct?"

"Yes, sir," I said, folding my hands behind my back for lack of a better place to put them.

"Congratulations. That's quite an accomplishment." He spoke without any discernible accent, but his deliberate cadence and intonation suggested something other than a native speaker.

"And off to play for USC this fall?"

"Go Trojans," I offered, sheepishly pumping my fists just to have something to do with my arms. He smiled wryly at the gesture, appearing to enjoy the awkwardness I felt standing before him.

"Your tennis resume is impressive, Lola." He placed the paper back on his desk. "I've no doubt that our members could learn a thing or two from you."

"Thank you, Mr. Ericsson."

"But," he added, the smile disappearing from his face, "It takes more than just tennis skills to succeed at Meadowlark."

With that, Mr. Ericsson stood and gestured to the wall of photographs behind him.

"These are our members," he said, his long arms seeming to stretch from one wall to the other. He held this pose wordlessly for a second, and with the tails of his blazer fanned out beneath his remarkable wingspan, he seemed almost like a bird of prey perched above me, displaying its plumage.

"Our members are titans of industry, champions of culture, winners who write the history books." His tone was lofty and without a hint of irony. I stood up even straighter than before.

"They have very stressful jobs filled with the difficult decisions that power demands of a chosen few." His language was full of reverence and admiration, but it seemed also pompous and self-congratulatory. Mr. Ericsson was himself a member of the club.

"Our members come here to relax and unwind from the rigors of running society. Meadowlark is a place for them to be comfortable. We take that very seriously."

He walked out from behind the desk and stood next to me in the center of the room, facing the wall of photos. At this distance, his scent wafted in beneath my nose, a subtle whisper of cologne. Unlike the boys at my high school, who seemed to bathe in body spray, Mr. Ericsson's musk danced across my palate, teasing my senses rather than choking them.

"Our members have... expectations of the staff here. The most important of these expectations is discretion."

I nodded.

"In order for our members to be comfortable here, they need to know that what they say and do here will be kept in the closest confidence by our staff."

I nodded again.

"Another part of being comfortable is being able to be yourself. With that in mind, we try to afford our members certain liberties that are unavailable elsewhere in society so that they can really feel at home here."

I nodded again, unsure what exactly Mr. Ericsson meant and whether or not he wanted me to respond. He must have sensed my uncertainty.

"Do you understand why I am telling you this, Lola?"

"I'm--not sure, sir," I admitted.

"If you decide that you want this job," he said, keeping his eyes on the photographs in front of us but placing his hand on the small of my back. "And if I decide to offer it to you, it's important that you understand now that some of the men at this club will make passes at you. I need to know that you will be able to handle these situations appropriately."

Mr. Ericsson turned to face me.

"If an older man were to stop you in the dining room and tell you that you look as juicy as a ripened Georgia peach, what would you do?"

I could feel the warmth of his hand on my lower back and flush of color rising in my cheeks. My mind whirred, rifling through millions of possible reactions.

"Thankfully," I smiled, "I'm not as fuzzy as a peach."

Mr. Ericsson cocked an eyebrow and nodded his head. His lips were impassive, revealing nothing, but his bright blue eyes seemed to smile at me.

"And if a gentleman were to congratulate you for a well-played match with a slap on the bottom," he said, lifting his hand from the small of my back and bringing it down on my ass with an enthusiastic smack. "What would you do, Lola?"

His hand lingered, the sting of its imprint spreading across the flesh beneath my thin cocktail dress.

I reached behind me and grasped Mr. Ericsson's wrist, gently lifting it from my ass and placing it back at his side.

"If you had hit the ball half as hard, you'd have won the match easily." I conjured up a girlish giggle to punctuate my response, but it bubbled up so easily that even I couldn't tell whether I was performing for him or just doing what came naturally.

Now, Mr. Ericsson couldn't suppress a smile.

"Let's take a walk, Lola," he said. "There are some members I'd like you to meet."

He placed his hand on waist and escorted me out of his office and into the hallway. It was a very curious feeling to have this older man--a total stranger--guiding my movements like this.

His touch was chaste enough that it didn't scream of impropriety, but it didn't feel entirely innocent, either. It managed to suggest an intimacy between us without betraying any unseemly details. It made me uncomfortable, in part because I couldn't decide whether I liked it or not.

As we entered the dining hall, I saw heads turn to take notice. Had the members been expecting us?

The crowd was mostly composed of middle-aged men, but there were a few women sprinkled in among them. Walking across the dining hall, it struck me that there wasn't a single person of color anywhere to be seen.

Finally, we arrived at a table where half-a-dozen middle-aged men were sitting over cocktails.

Before Mr. Ericsson could speak, a thick-set man with salt and pepper hair spoke up. "Have you brought us a present, Magnus?" he bellowed.

"Gentlemen, let me introduce Lola Andrews." He squeezed my waist and I instinctively responded with a little bow, something I'm sure I had never done before in my life. "She just might be our new tennis instructor."

"You look nervous, honey," another man said. "What did you tell her about us, Magnus?"

Somehow, before I could stop them, the words tumbled out of my mouth. "He said you were very important men," I said. "But he didn't say how handsome you all are."

At that, the table roared with raucous laughter.

"I'd like to shake the hand of the man who raised this one!" The thick-set man said.

"I'm glad you approve, gentlemen," Mr. Ericsson nodded. With his hand, he began to pivot me away from the table.

"Just one more thing," the thick-set man called. Mr. Ericsson stopped.

"Lola, tell me. We've never had an Asian tennis instructor at Meadowlark before. Will your lessons have a... happy ending?"

Today, I know well what this means, but that day the meaning of his innuendo was lost on me.

Confused, I said nothing.

"You've got her tongue-tied with that one, Rex!" As the men at the table laughed, I could feel my composure dwindling as the redness of embarrassment spread over me.

"That's alright," said Rex, the thick-set man. "If she can teach my wife to blush like that when she hears a dirty joke, I'll book her for the entire summer!"

The crowd laughed again.

"That's enough for now, I think," Mr. Ericsson said, moving me away from the table. "Let's save some banter for the summer."

"Well done, Magnus," someone called as we walked away. "Well done."

Back in his office, Mr. Ericsson returned to the chair behind his desk, and I resumed my position at the center of the room.

"You did well," he said.

"Thank you, Mr. Ericsson."

"As you've seen, most of our members are white. If I offer you this job, you'll be the only Asian on our staff."

"Half-Asian," I corrected him.

"Oh, is your father white?" Like most white men I have met, Mr. Ericsson was entirely comfortable discounting the possibility that my father could be Asian and my mother white.

"What does he do?"

"He's a college professor," I murmured.

"Could I meet him?" Mr. Ericsson asked.

This seemed to me a strange request. I didn't understand why Mr. Ericsson would want to meet my father and what it had to do with my job interview.

"I don't think that will be possible, sir."

"Why not?"

"He... my Dad doesn't live around here."

"Where is he?"

"California."

"When will he come to visit you?"

"I--don't know."

I was looking down at my hands, fidgeting, suddenly unable to look Mr. Ericsson in the face.

He paused to consider what I had said. I think he could sense that this line of questioning made me more uncomfortable than any of our earlier interactions.

"Well," he said, "Lola, if I offer you this job, knowing what you know about it, will you take it?"

I was so relieved that he had finally left the subject of my father behind that I barely stopped to think about my answer.

"Yes," I said, looking back up at Mr. Ericsson, whose lips were curving to form a bright, white, toothy grin. "I want it."

...

I practically floated home after leaving Meadowlark. Besides the exhilaration of landing a new job and the anticipation of all the extra money I would make, there was an undeniable electricity that shot through me every time I thought about how Mr. Ericsson and the other club members had treated me. Those were powerful, serious men, yet they couldn't take their eyes off me. Without knowing exactly how, I had performed well, charming them effortlessly with my witty repartee. Their praise had washed me over, making me forget exactly how I hand earned it, and my ample chest swelled with pride. I must be a very captivating girl, I thought, to have earned their attention and compliments so easily.

My excitement curdled to anxiety as I arrived home. I realized that I might have to lie to my Mom about my job on a daily basis. After being repeatedly betrayed by my philandering father, himself a middle-aged white man with a predilection for barely legal teenage girls, it might have actually killed her to learn that her beautiful, big-breasted, not-yet-19-year-old half-Asian daughter had knowingly accepted a job in which she was likely to be ogled and groped by wealthy, middle-aged white men on a regular basis. That night, as I worried about what would happen if my Mom ever discovered what the men at Meadowlark were really like, I began to wonder why I wasn't more concerned about their behavior. Mr. Ericsson had told me up front about what I could expect, and I had already experienced it for myself. Knowing what it would entail, why was I so eager to accept the job?

It is hard to read the teenage mind, but looking back from the vantage point of the present day, I think I saw that summer as an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity was obvious: I would make more money than I ever had and rub elbows with powerful, influential people. At such a young age, this seemed like a golden chance for me to enter into rarified air.

There was also an element of challenge that appealed to me. When Mr. Ericsson had warned me that there were men at the club who might seek to take advantage of me, he had imbued it with an alluring sense of danger. To navigate through a summer at Meadowlark, I would need to be quick on my feet and keep my wits about me. Did I have the skills to escape unscathed, or would I fall prey to one of the club's apex predators? Naïve as I was, both outcomes seemed thrilling to me in their own way. With this mindset, the lamb coaxed herself into the lion's den.

It's important to realize that, at that time, I still believed with conviction that I had the power to control my sexuality, blissfully unaware that it had a life of its own. Although I had been helpless to resist Cam, I took this as evidence that he was uniquely dominant, never considering the possibility that perhaps I was especially prone to submission. My defective self-control--my father's shameful legacy--had only been exposed by one man, but others were not far behind. There were barbarians at the gates, probing for weaknesses, eager to break down the doors and pillage my body for all it was worth.

...

Based on how my interview went, you may be under the impression that the membership rolls of Meadowlark were filled exclusively with crass, coarse, would-be casanovas. This is misleading. In fact, most of the members were decent, upstanding, god-fearing family men who were no more likely to grope an 18-year-old girl than they were to sprout wings and fly away. They might have appreciated the view as I bounced around the courts outside the dining room in my too-tight tennis whites, but they were harmless. These men, their wives, and their children made up the silent majority of members at the club. As in many areas of our society, however, the norms of the club catered not to the silent majority but to the vocal minority.

These were the men I had met during my interview.

I have already mentioned my club-issued tennis whites, which testified to the influence of this vocal minority. At the end of my interview, Mr. Ericsson had asked me to fill out a uniform procurement form with my body measurements: 35-24-35. When I showed up for my first day, however, the uniform waiting in my locker was almost laughably undersized. It was a struggle just to get the top on, and when I did, it looked more like I was wearing a Halloween costume than an actual uniform. For one thing, the shirt was too short, leaving 2-3 inches of my taut, tanned midriff exposed. Even more brazen was the collar, which flared widely at the neck and plunged downward, exhibiting a wildly generous amount of cleavage. Although the collar ostensibly be buttoned up to look more modest, in practice this was impossible, as the skin-hugging fabric simply would not stretch across the swell of my chest. The tennis skirt they gave me wasn't much better. Sitting snugly above my waist, it barely managed to hide the full curve of my ass, covering perhaps 1-2 inches of my upper thighs at most. The rest of my long, smooth legs were on display for all to see.

Seeing myself in this uniform for the first time, I almost got cold feet. As I think you know, my body hardly needs to be accentuated, as my curves tend to attract attention even when I try to hide them. This uniform, however, was designed to draw attention to my body. Staring at myself in the locker room mirror, I looked every inch a male fantasy, more Playboy pin-up than tennis pro. I would never be able to bring my uniform home--my Mom could never see the skimpy outfit I wore at the club.

When I asked Mr. Ericsson if he could order a larger size for me, he insisted that I model the uniform for him so that he could see whether it was necessary. So there I was, 20 minutes into my first day at the club, doing runway walks and twirls in Mr. Ericsson's office, giving him a private show in my pornographic uniform, all in the hopes that he might order me something more modest. Naturally, my modeling had the opposite effect on him.

"The uniform looks fantastic, Lola," he said, his bright blue eyes burning a hole in me. "I wouldn't change a thing."

"But Mr. Ericsson," I pleaded, "I won't be able to play my best in this."

He dismissed my objections with a flick of his wrist.

"Try it out for a week or two and see how it feels. If you still want a different size, we can revisit the question then." Then he cocked an eyebrow. "But you might change your mind when you hear all of the compliments you're going get."

Of course, we never revisited the subject of my uniform. I wore it all summer long, just as the vocal minority intended. Mr. Ericsson wanted me to look and feel like a sex object, so I gave him what he wanted--not for the last time.

...

One unintended side effect of the choices I have made since Cam broke me in shortly after my 18th birthday is that my sexual life has become something of an amateur study of male dominance. After coming to grips with the painful realization that arrogant, entitled, hyper-aggressive men seemed to be my "type," I began to wonder where these men came from and how they developed these traits. Now 26, I have fucked and sucked more than two dozen men that match this description, enough to be something of an authority on the matter.

I used to wonder whether dominant men were born or raised. Was their ability to control me some innate part of their biological endowment? Or--more frightening--was it something they had learned?

It may come as little surprise that, in my opinion, both nature and nurture play a role in creating an alpha male. Take the case of Cam, the womanizing stud who branded me as a slut when he took my virginity, and his brother Caleb, so meek and unassuming that he could barely look me in the eye. To me, this is a clear case of nature running its course. Both brothers were raised in the same household by the same parents and attended the same schools, but one of them was genetically hardwired for dominance and the other simply wasn't. It took Cam a matter of hours to bend me over his weight bench, but even with a lifetime to study his older brother's way with women, Caleb could never have fucked me like that--he just didn't have it in him.

Despite the heartache it has caused me, nothing turns me on more than natural male dominance. It is an awesome, beautiful, terrifying thing to behold, the genetic echo of an earlier age in human history when the cold calculus of our environment selected for traits like size, speed, and stamina above all others, thereby enabling--even encouraging--men in possession of these traits to spread their seed far and wide through the conquest and colonization of countless female bodies, concubines claimed and held captive by strength and strength alone.

Fuck, I'm getting wet just thinking about it.