The Dark Side

An African American woman greeted him, seated at a credenza in a sitting room that looked like it was straight out of a 1940s London brothel, complete with floral, Victorian settees and a sterling silver tea set and bone china teacups atop a mother-of-pearl inlayed console table. "Welcome to The Dark Side. How can we be of assistance to you this evening?"

David Osterhaus had never been to a BDSM dungeon before. It was his first time and he had no idea what to expect. He was out of his element to be sure. He wasn't even submissive, or at least he had never identified himself as such. Sure, he loved sucking off Black men and he enjoyed it when they choked him, spit on him, and called him names but that wasn't really considered submissive in his mind. That was just . . . being kinky. He wasn't sure what had drawn him to make the appointment with a Black Dominatrix. He was reasonably assured it was going to be a huge waste of time and money. All he really knew was he had to be there, he had to see what this Mistress Desire was all about.

David stood frozen in the vestibule, afraid to move. Normally, he would have walked in like he owned the place but he was out of his element and this was not at ALL what he was expecting. It was so . . . sophisticated, so posh, so . . . so European. He'd never been in a crack house before but he was half expecting it to be something like that: dark, dirty, except with whips and chains on the walls. This place looked like a scene from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

"Sir? How may we help you?"

Dave cleared his throat and said, "Uhmmm, I have an appointment. Uhmmm, my name is Bob Johnson," having rehearsed what he was going to say a dozen times on the drive there.

"Why yes, Mr. Johnson, I see you have a session with Mistress Desire. She is one of our best. I'm sure you are going to enjoy your experience." David glanced around more. There was a huge male bodyguard who was seated at a table directly behind the hostess. He looked pretty intimidating but didn't really fear Black men, he had been on his knees in front of them too many times for him to have a paranoid fear of them. But, he was intimidated and wondered what would happen if he pissed off the wrong person.

There were tons of papers to fill out, forms to sign. The hostess, a pretty brown-skinned women who seemed very congenial and articulate, read special highlighted sections and asked him to initial certain disclaimers and rules. "Now, we're almost finished. All we have to do is clear up the matter of payment and I'll need your fingerprints."

"Oh, yeah, I almost forgot," David mumbled. He reached in his pocket and pulled out an envelope with cash and slid it across the desk. He glanced nervously around. He had intentionally only put $300 in the envelope knowing full well the cost for the evening was $1000. Consumed with arrogance and an unarticulated disdain for Black women, David was offended at having to pay that much money, even though he had it and some to spare. Sitting there, he felt like an idiot. His plan had some flaws. He had planned on making some excuse and bartering for a lower price. He assumed that because it was only Black women, that they would take whatever he gave them and be happy. Surely, $300 would cover their rent in the housing projects. He had never been to a housing project nor did he know what the rent was for an apartment in one but he just assumed that the $1000 fee was inordinately high and wasn't going to give his hard-earned, well, easy-earned money to some welfare queen. Sitting there however, seeing the surroundings, seeing the location and the whole set up, he didn't think that any of the women had ever seen or been to a housing project either.

"Mr. Johnson," she said, clearing her throat, "there seems to be a problem." With that, the bodyguard stood up and moved uncomfortably close to David. "We like to respect our client's privacy so we offer them the opportunity to pay in cash. It's an amenity we provide at great risk to ourselves but we expect the trust we have in our clients to be rewarded with their loyalty and respect. Now, the cost for a session with Mistress Desire is $1000. This seems to be short quite a bit. Now, we can have you see one of our other very capable Dommes or, if you'd like, you are more than welcome to pay the balance and we can get you settled in within a matter of minutes for your session.

David felt like a tool. He wanted to grab the money and leave and never look back but something held him to the spot where he sat. The man towering over him didn't look upset or agitated but he was ready to squash any issues that might arise with physical force for sure. He pulled out his wallet and swallowed hard. He hadn't brought any extra cash, lest he was jumped and robbed, they were Black people after all. He had wanted to avoid using a credit card to protect his identity but in that moment he couldn't think of anything else to do. If he left to go to a cash machine and get more money, he might chicken out and not come back so he opted to just hand over the plastic.

The woman took his card, looked at the name on it and then at him. David had written "Ask for ID" on the back of his card and he swallowed hard and handed it over without her needing to ask. She and swiped the card and asked for a signature on her tablet. "Your credit card statement will reflect a payment to Jenkins Emporium, LLC. Would you like a receipt, Mr. Johnson," she queried, without the tiniest bit of pause knowing full well that wasn't his real name? She handed him the tablet and asked him to place his thumb and forefinger on the indicated areas. David didn't have a record and he had never been arrested or fingerprinted by any branch of law enforcement so he was relatively comfortable with that step of the process and not overly paranoid about it coming back to haunt him which was pretty rare for him. The bodyguard went back to his chair and continued flipping through the pages of a magazine.

Seemingly, out of nowhere, another attractive young woman entered the room and said, "Follow me."

David was escorted up two flights of stairs. The young lady pressed a code on a keypad and the door clicked. It was all very high-tech and looked like something out of a science fiction movie and was a stark contrast to the décor of the parlor. She held the door open and said, "Mistress Desire will be with you momentarily. Please, make yourself comfortable." David walked past her, the scent of her perfume lingering in the air between them, and entered the room. He wished he had some X to drop but he did pay attention enough to the woman downstairs when she said absolutely no drugs and he didn't want to take any more chances with fucking up after his first little incident.

The very first thing that he noticed was that the room had obviously been renovated from its original layout, with walls taken out and some contemporary updates. The room was sparse, well much more so than the other parts of the house that seemed overly ornate and accessorized. The walls were covered in heavy velvet curtains and there was an armoire full of antique torture devices on full display. The furniture, if you could call it that, was all some variation of custom restraint and torture devices, stockades and the like. A chill went up David's spine. "Oh my God! This bitch is going to try to take out all her frustrations for slavery on me," he thought. In that instant, he wished he had read the fine print on all the forms he had signed. "What the hell was I thinking? I'm not even into this shit! Fuck this!" He was ready to grab his proverbial hat and leave. Forget the money it; would just be a very expensive lesson learned. Just as he was about to make a run for it, the door opened and Mistress Desire walked in.

She was not at all what David had expected. First and foremost, she was wearing a coral colored dress, off the shoulder and diaphanous. It was flowing and soft and looked like it could have been seen in the pages of a fashion magazine editorial layout. She had expensive tortoise shell glasses on that were perched half way down her brown, button nose. Her hair was short, and she didn't look like she was wearing a lot of makeup but David was no expert in that sort of thing so he didn't really know. His wife only wore makeup to weddings and the office Christmas party and it really only consisted of pink lipstick on her incredibly thin lips.

In her hands was a tablet and she read whatever was on it quite thoroughly before speaking further. "Let's get the formalities out of the way first, shall we? My name is Desiree'. You can call me Mistress Desire if you'd like. You can call me Desiree'. Before the night is over I'm sure you are going to call me bitch a few times, maybe even cunt if that's in your regular lexicon. You can call me Goddess, Mommy, whatever makes you comfortable, I don't' really care. What you absolutely can't call me is nigger, or any variation thereof. If you do, there will be consequences beyond anything that your little imagination can comprehend. Understand?" She continued, "I'm going to be your guide this evening. Your safe word for this and every session you have with me going forward will be Quantum. If you want me to stop, say the word 'quantum' and I will immediately cease everything and you will be free to go. Do you understand?"

David laughed. It was nervous laughter rather than the condescending "Of course I understand, whatta you think, I'm stupid, you dumb bitch?" comment he was biting his tongue to hold back from saying. She gave him a stern look and made it known that his non-verbal communication skills were not sufficient. He was able to squeak out a, "Got it," as he sucked his teeth in defiance. He was quite convinced that most of the clients she saw were doormats and pushovers and total losers who let her do anything she wanted and who would beg for more. He was going to show her. He was going to be the one she would never forget. He was just doing this for the experience. He just wanted to see what had made his friend Bryan so . . . weird. If he could get a nut out of it, all the better.

"OK," she said, "Let's get started, shall we?" She put down her tablet on a dresser and went to the closet. She opened the door and stepped into the walk-in closet but left the door open more than enough for David to see her unzipping her dress and stepping out of it. She was wearing a black lace bra and panty set and David was shocked that her body was curvy but not at all out of proportion with a big, ghetto booty like he assumed it would be. She was fit and toned and her skin was the color of milk chocolate that seemed inordinately, freakishly inviting in the softly illuminated room. She took a black latex dress off a hanger and stepped into it. After some maneuvering, she was able to pull it into place. Black latex gloves and patent leather boots finished the outfit. She hung up her daytime dress and closed the door. David's mouth was open the entire time.

"I know, I know. It's a bit cliché but it really is the only option." Before his eyes she had transformed herself. Her breasts were pushed up and spilling out of the low-cut neckline of the dress. Her hourglass figure was accentuated and she looked like what one would imagine a Dominatrix looking like. "Now, I won't ruin my clothes with any messy bodily fluids. Don't you just hate when you stain your Yves St. Laurent with blood? I hate that." With that, she scrunched up her nose and made a silly little face and laughed.

David did not see the humor in what she said. Whose blood did she think was going to come in contact with? Certainly not his. He didn't sign up for that.

"Gourmet!"

Desiree looked at him with a very confused look on her face. "I beg your pardon."

"I said, gourmet. I don't want this. I change my mind. I'm saying the safe word. Gourmet. I quit."

"Your safe word is Quantum, not gourmet." After a very pregnant, awkward pause, she replied, "It was a pleasure meeting you and do get home safely." She turned to open the closet door again.

David panicked. He had come too far to go back now. He had to know what made Bryan so . . . so . . . comfortable in his own skin, so unafraid. He had to know what this woman had that was so mesmerizing and captivating. "Ha, ha, ha. I was . . . you know, just kidding." He was scrambling and trying to think on his feet. "I know it's quantum. Yeah, quantum, I got it. I was just playing. I just wanted to make sure you were going to keep your word. It was a test . . . yeah . . . like a test."

"I don't like playing games. Now, if you want to stay, take off your clothes and wait for instructions. If you want to leave, as I said before, get home safely.

David really wanted to leave. He wanted to go back to Boringville and go to Rock's and suck off a big black cock and then go home to his boring life and boring wife. But SOMETHING made him stay firmly planted where he stood. He couldn't even explain it to himself. This was certifiably crazy, even for him.

He pulled his shirt over his head, sort of like a gesture to say, "OK, I'll play along." He stood there, motionless, waiting for the show to begin. Surely, he thought, she was going to yell and scream at him for defying her orders. That, he could get into. That was his area of expertise, pissing people off. He didn't work out but he was in good shape relatively for his age so he wasn't afraid of her. Then, he remembered the bodyguard from downstairs and rethought and misguided ideas he had of any sort of physical altercation with this woman.

Desiree circled him, the click of her high heels on the parquet floors was staccato yet seemed to be muffled by the thick textiles covering the walls. "I'm not a typical Domme," she explained. "I'm not going to yell and scream, I'm not going to demand that you do silly things to earn my approval, I'm certainly not going to tire myself out beating you to within an inch of your life. I'm a psychological Domme. I'm going to get in your head, I'm going to break you. I told you that. So, we can stand here for your entire session if you'd like. It won't hurt my feelings at all. As long as you're out of here by 11:30, I'm perfectly fine with whatever you'd like. I have a regular client coming in at midnight and my relationship with them goes back to 2004 and I will NOT have you interfere with that session."

David's ears perked up. Bryan said that he had belonged to Mistress Desire for a decade. Is that who would be coming in after him? What the hell could she possible do that would make him so devoted to her for so long? He had to stay. He had to experience what Bryan did. He wanted a bigger nut, he wanted something new and more exciting. Stripping completely naked, David stood there, bare, exposed, and vulnerable, erect in both the literal and figurative senses of the word, awaiting further instruction.

Mistress Desire circled David like a lioness stalks her prey: quietly observing and calculating her attack before she went in for the kill. Desiree' examined David like a farmer would inspect his livestock.

Along with the standard BDSM paraphernalia of floggers and paddles and restraints, Desiree' had an arsenal of medieval torture devices at her fingertips that she could use to inflict crippling pain on David like he was a serf who had stolen a jewel from the King's crown if she wanted. In actuality, they weren't from medieval times at all but the very same torture devices used on slaves in the antebellum land of Dixie. That's one of the many reasons a session with her was so much more expensive than the other Dommes; she had an attention to detail that couldn't compare and a knack for irony that rivaled any metallurgist's. While she was a psychological Domme at heart, and while her techniques and practices centered on getting into a person's mind and rewiring their thought patterns, she wasn't oblivious to the fact that pain, coupled with the right doses of pleasure and reward, were integral components in breaking a sub.

"Would you mind?" She handed him a pair of handcuffs and indicated that she would indeed like him to put them on himself. He clicked on the left and then the right one, leaving them loose enough for him to slip out of. Desiree' smiled. She tightened both cuffs until they couldn't be tightened any more.

"Hey! That's too tight!" David was incensed and he began bargaining. "OK, look, I get that I had them on too loose but can't we find a happy medium?" He was struggling against the restraints, pulling at them as if that was going to make them hurt less.

Desire smiled. "Yes, I can only imagine that they do hurt, quite significantly in fact. But, I can promise you that you will experience a great deal more discomfort before the evening is over." If only her tone wasn't so calming and reassuring, if her voice wasn't so soft and seductive. If it matched the discomfort he was feeling, he could wrap his head around the entire situation. This was strange, unfamiliar territory, uncharted waters as it were. She grabbed a pole and used it to pull a hook down from the ceiling. Before David even had a chance to object, she had placed the connecting links of the handcuffs to the hook and released it and it immediately pulled his arms above his head tautly. David dangled like some sort of kinky, naked piñata, his toes barely touching the floor.

One minute suspended like that felt like an eternity. David screamed. He didn't yell, he wasn't speaking in a raised, angry voice, he screamed out like he was afraid for his life. It's not a sensation many people ever experience and it was one that David had never even imagined he was capable of experiencing. He was more terrified of the unknown than the actual sensation of pain, although, the pain was quite intense. The more he struggled, the more he panicked and the more he panicked the more he cried like a baby. Desiree wasn't the least bit phased by his antics. The room was completely soundproofed and the night was oh so young.

"Let me go, bitch! Let me down!" David flailed and kicked, missing any contact with this cruel woman by more than a foot because he had no leverage, no balance. His arms ached, burned. Desiree' remedied the situation by putting legs irons on him that left his legs immobilized about three feet apart.

"Your name is now Dayo. It's a West African name, it's actually a girl's name but you won't mind, will you?"

"You fucking bitch, my God damn name isn't Die yo. It's Bob . . . it's . . . fuck it, it's David," he said, relinquishing the need for fake names, breathless and crying now. All he wanted in that moment, all he needed was relief from the excruciating burning in his wrists, arms, and shoulders.

"Now, now, Dayo! Calm down. Take a deep breath. She took off her glove and began caressing his naked flesh. It did calm him. His brain registered her touch as soothing and healing. She kept instructing him to take deep breaths as she stroked his reddened flesh. His arms were now numb and the pain was dull as she softly ran her fingertips up and down his skin, stroking his rising cock. He didn't want to get hard, he didn't think it was possible under the circumstances but damn it all, he was. He hated himself for being aroused in that moment.

"I would love to let you down but I'm afraid I can't. You see. I need to beat you, torture you until such time as you relinquish your name. You not only have to accept your new name, you have to hate your birth name. I am terribly sorry but I must inflict so much pain that you embrace your new name with gratitude. That's what my ancestors endured, the ones kidnapped and brought 1000s of miles from their homes to be enslaved like livestock. They weren't allowed to keep their names. They were beaten, raped, and tortured until they gave up their real African names for new European names. And, they weren't as lucky as you to experience sexual arousal, their experience wasn't for a couple of hours, it was for a lifetime. So, Dayo, that is your new name and you are going to like it."