The Diary of Mistress X

"Why, yes. I'm a journalist." I said it as if being a journalist would answer all of her questions.

Her response should have been expected. "And ...?"

"I was looking for Mistress X. Is that you?"

Soo, the burly woman (whose name I didn't know), and the woman all laughed as if I had just told the funniest inside joke, except I wasn't on the inside. I'm sure I looked befuddled.

"So you're not Mistress X?" Now I felt like the biggest dumbass of all time.

"Of course not. I've been called a number of things, but not Mistress X. My name is Guinevere ... Guinevere Bouchaine. My friends call me Gwen. And I'm sorry, I didn't introduce Rita to you. Rita, Cassie.

The burly woman's face broke into a broad smile. "I'm pleased to meet you Cassie."

"Likewise Rita." Her bark was definitely worse than her bite. Her tough façade seemed to be just that, a façade. Her smile betrayed her inner self.

Gwen pushed her salad to the side and rested her elbows on the table and placed her chin in the cup of her hands. "Now tell me about this Mistress X, who you think I am."

Rita and Soo also gave me their undivided attention. I was going to have to spill my guts. I had nothing to lose at this point. Gwen probably already knew everything I was going to say.

"I started to research BDSM for an underground newspaper in New Orleans. Don't ask me how I ended up there. A journalism major from the University of Wisconsin. Anyway I have a friend who seems to travel in those circles ..."

"What circles?" Gwen interrupted my stream of consciousness, but it was clear that she was absorbing each word coming out of my mouth.

"You know ... the BDSM circles." I was displaying my ignorance for all to see.

"The BDSM circles," she repeated slowly, as if she had just heard that phrase for the first time. "So you personally, you're not in that 'circle'?" She was watching me dig myself deeper and was enjoying the show. I think Soo and Rita were amused as well.

"Well, no," I said in an attempt to create distance between me and my lack of knowledge about what I was talking about. "But I'm a lesbian," I announced. I wanted to show them I was different.

"I like women too," Gwen announced, as if it were news to everyone at the table. The words again gained that crisp diction that announced her command. Of course she liked women. I wanted her. The scent of roses swirled around my head.

I shifted gears in an attempt to get some traction before I completely lost control of the conversation. "Did you live in New Orleans?"

She thought about her answer. She was a cipher to me, and was deciding how much information she was going to mete out to me. "I did. I lived there for many years before I retired here. Why do you ask?"

"I'm from New Orleans."

"I think we've established that."

"So was Mistress X."

"I see." She was unimpressed by the coincidence.

She was going to make me work for every inch. I decided to take a shot in the dark. "Did you know an Arlene?"

I could swear her face flashed a moment of recognition, but it passed. "Arlene? Does she have a last name?"

"No. I never got it. She was a Domme. And she seemed to have learned her craft from someone like a Mistress X."

Gwen put her forefinger to her chin. "No ... no ... that name doesn't seem to ring a bell with me."

She seemed to want to change the subject. "Tell me more about who you think I am."

"Well, everyone I talked to that knew a Mistress X said that she was older, much older than you. I think Mistress X's reputation crested about twenty years ago, so my guess is that she would be in her sixties, or maybe older." I knew I was treading on thin ice. After her age, why didn't I just ask her religion, and then maybe her weight?

"How old do you think I am?" She asked the ultimate loaded question from which there is no escape. But somehow I felt the truth was in order. It was not possible for me to lie to her.

"Late forties?" I ventured. I prayed she would not tell me she was in her thirties.

She looked at Soo instead of me. "I think I like her too."

Rita leaned toward me and held her hand next to my ear so her whisper would only be heard by me. "She's sixty-three next month."

My jaw dropped. I was thirty-two, and she looked better than me. I did not detect any surgical help. She was in the age range of my fictional Mistress X. But she was nothing like what I pictured. Before me was a casually dressed woman with blonde hair streaked with white. She had a face of a middle aged movie star who could still command an occasional leading role. She exuded elegance and refinement. I pictured someone who had dark hair, or grey hair, shorter, and lacking some of the social graces that came naturally to Gwen.

I looked down. I remembered seeing the smooth line of my borrowed jeans, hugging my legs, and then the thought occurred to me that I might appear to be ungrateful.

"The clothes. I'm wearing someone else's clothes."

Gwen appraised me one more time, this time allowing her gaze to drop lower, to see my breasts straining against the fine silk garment, the buttons threatening to burst.

"They're mine," she said. "After you fainted we had to carry you here. Scalp wounds bleed a lot, even superficial ones. I'm afraid there was blood all over your jeans and your blouse so we had to wash them for you. We didn't want to go through your luggage." I heard the clatter of the dryer running someplace. She pointed behind me. "They're drying right now and should be ready to put back on shortly. I apologize for the fit. You're more ... uh ... well-endowed than me."

I felt myself blushing. I was embarrassed. Now every word she was uttering had an effect on me, and the back handed compliment was pushing me off-balance once again. My hands moved involuntarily to cover the considerable cleavage I was displaying but I caught myself halfway through the futile gesture. Of course she would have already seen all of me when they were undressing me to change my clothes. I looked to her to say more.

"And don't worry about the clothes. You shouldn't be embarrassed. I'm the one that should be embarrassed. I had to grab something quick and I found the pants and blouse you were wearing in a bag of clothes I was going to donate to the local women's shelter."

I looked at her wondering why she would give away such beautiful clothes. She read my bewildered look.

"Oil painting is a hobby of mine. I was working on a painting and a tube of dark blue paint splattered my clothes. Those are the clothes you're wearing."

I was going to say something that was going to betray my social standing, if my well-loved Honda Civic that hadn't been vacuumed in six months didn't already give it away. "I love the clothes."

"You're welcome to keep them."

I know I smiled. She was giving something of herself to me. With her watching me, all knowing, I moved my shoulder slightly and smelled the sleeve of my slightly used silk blouse. A faint smell of roses. Naturally. It was if she was already leaving her mark on me, and I didn't know it at the time.

"So what exactly happened after I fainted?" I wanted to hear the full story.

"Well, I caught you before you hit the ground, hence the wardrobe change."

I realized I must have gotten blood on her clothes as well. Another instant apology started to bubble up as she was talking, but she was one step ahead of me. "Now don't worry about my clothes. I'm sure my dry cleaner can get out the blood stains."

"I want to . . . " I started to utter my offer to also pay for the damage to her clothes.

"Nonsense. You'll do nothing of the sort," she said curtly, neatly sealing my lips. "Now as I was saying."

She looked at me to tell me that she brooked no further interruption to her answer to the question I asked. "I caught you and put you in the back seat of the Bentley. I wrapped your head with a roll of gauze we keep in the first aid kit in the trunk of the car. I drove you back to the house. Rita drove your car. She helped me carry you to the mud room off the kitchen, and that's where we changed your clothes and cleaned your wound. By the way, Soo is a physician, so she took care of you. The wound clotted on its own."

I looked at Soo. She was sitting there quietly as Gwen was talking. She turned her head slightly towards me. "You'll be fine Cassie," she said assuredly. Growing up in the U.S., it amused me to hear a woman of Chinese descent speaking with a British accent.

"Soo trained in Hong Kong," Gwen added, solving the short mystery of Soo's accent and also reinforcing my belief in her mind reading skills.

A loud beeping noise sounded as the dryer came to a stop. It was suddenly quiet in the kitchen, but for the sound of cicadas cutting through the moist heat of the summer.

"Ah, your clothes are dry. Would you like to take a moment to change back into your clothes?" Gwen started to rise in her chair.

My mouth moved before I could stop it. "No, I think I'll wear these."

Gwen looked pleased. She sat back down. "Well, you look lovely in them. Much better than me."

Another blush. This one much more intense. I could feel my face burning. She was controlling my emotions without exerting any effort. It came naturally to her. She was studying my reaction.

"Doesn't anyone ever tell you that you're beautiful?" she asked as if she was incredulous.

I paused. The all telling pause. "Well ... not that often." In truth, I couldn't remember the last time I was told that. Certainly not my last girlfriend. I'm not exactly sure why I hooked up with her.

"You are," she said emphatically, as if it were an established fact. "And don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

My eyes started to drop to the floor. She was soothing my own insecurities about my appearance, perhaps irrational but who knows.

"I'd love to have breasts like yours."

I couldn't lift my head, but I knew her eyes were on me, my nipples swelling and pressing almost painfully against the cups of my bra. I could see that the outline of my nipples were clearly visible through the sheer silk. The idea of her witnessing my arousal triggered a growing dampness between my legs. I pressed my knees together as if that would stop my body from telling her how much I wanted her.

Rita was politely eating her salad. She was using her knife to cut the last shrimp. Soo had taken a few bites. Neither Gwen nor I had touched our plates.

"You're not hungry, dear?" her noticing I hadn't touched anything.

I realized I wasn't hungry. I was always hungry and it was a constant battle for me to control my weight. I adored shrimp (I did live in New Orleans) and the salad looked enticing. But not now. My body craved something else.

"Uh ... no. Maybe it's the bump on my head. I'm not that hungry."

"I understand," she said, pushing her own untouched salad forward towards the middle of the table. "How about I show you the house, and maybe continue our conversation?"

"I'd like that."

Rita was finishing her salad and eyeing the one in the middle of the table. Soo was still pushing her food around her plate. "And ladies," said Gwen as she rose up, "please excuse us. And Rita, you're welcome to my salad. It would be a shame for it to go to waste."

She came around to my side of the table. I stood up. She offered her hand and mine melted into hers as she led me out of the kitchen. We were walking through a large sitting area with comfortable leather sofas and club chairs positioned near a dormant fireplace when she started talking again.

"You're probably wondering about Rita and Soo. Rita has been with me for thirty years. She rarely leaves my side. I helped her when she had a minor scrape with the law back she was in her 20's and she's been with me ever since. We have a ... complicated relationship. Soo and I have a less complicated relationship. She's my sub." She let it roll off her tongue as if she were telling me that Soo was her doctor. "You know what that means don't you?"

I recalled what I had read online. "You mean your submissive?"

"That's right. Soo has been living here for two years."

We reached a wide, winding staircase. She gestured for me to go first. I walked up the carpeted portion in the middle and arrived at a landing and made a ninety degree turn to another flight of stairs. The hand railing was sculptural metal, a burnished grey metal, that felt cool to the touch as I gripped it. I felt an ocean breeze hit my hair as I reached the top. I was looking at the Gulf of Mexico, the stacking doors across the vestibule wide open, and the smell of the sea and the warm salty air greeting me. She took my hand again and led me across the vestibule so we could stand at the wide opening, to enjoy an unobstructed view of the white sand beach and the whitecaps as far as you could see. Dark clouds loomed far in the distance, announcing the arrival of a late afternoon shower.

"It's stunning." I looked to the right and then to the left, seeing the beachfront homes far in the distance on each side, and then downward to see her large rectangular pool and the large expanse of Bermuda grass surrounding it. Colorful beach umbrellas were opened, protecting poolside lounge chairs. Several varieties of roses adorned the adjoining garden.

"It's what I've always wanted." Her voice turned melodious again. I now knew she was in her element, probing with her questions and watching me. "What do you want Cassie? Why are you looking for Mistress X?" We leaned on the railing in front of us and stared out into the distance while she awaited my answer.

"I'm not sure." I truly wasn't sure. "It started as a story for a newspaper that I'd been freelancing for. I'm an accountant by trade, but my true love is journalism. I wrote an article on the homeless encampment on the edge of the city. I spent a weekend there, in my tent, getting to know the people there. The editor liked my article and it was published. He asked me to write another one."

I was struggling with whether I should tell her about my night with Franny and Mistress Arlene. I thought maybe now wasn't the time.

"I heard about BDSM and read up on it on the internet and sketched out notes for a feature length article. My editor liked my pitch, and encouraged me to write it. I started talking with friends and friends of friends and went from there. A recurring theme was this Mistress X. Apparently women came to New Orleans to seek her out. To be with her. She was reputed to be a dominatrix, one who could see you for what you were. Am I getting that right? Dominatrix?"

"That's right."

"Well anyway, the more I heard about Mistress X the more it made sense to make her the focal point of the story. I asked around and was ultimately given this address from someone in Sarasota that claimed to know her."

"And who would that be?"

This wasn't an investigation. I didn't need to protect my sources. I told her. "Diana. I think Diana Larson."

"Ah, Diana." Gwen said it with a voice of recognition. "Diana would think that."

"What do you mean?"

"She probably heard about Soo and the nature of my relationship with her. She must have assumed I was this mysterious Mistress X."

"Another thing that intrigued me. It was rumored that Mistress X kept a meticulous handwritten diary. I can imagine the pages of that diary would have stories that would reveal the true nature of a relationship between and dominant and a submissive. Those kinds of stories are the centerpiece of an in-depth article."

"I see."

"And she seemed to hold some power over women. I was skeptical when I heard it. I don't think anyone can take away one's volition. I wanted to meet her and to understand why people have said that about her."

"Did you want to experience that?"

Why was she asking me that? Was that an offer of some kind?

"What do you mean?"

"The transfer of power. What it feels to surrender to another. To give yourself freely and completely."

"For my article?"

"For yourself."

Those piercing green eyes. Just like Mistress Arlene's. There was no place to hide.

I could see the fine lines on her face, none detracting from her timeless beauty, as her eyes read me without me speaking. I sensed an inflection point in my life that hinged on my answer. The vast sea of blue in front of me brought about an unusual calm as I mulled over the answer to her question.

I sensed she was going to reveal something about myself that I couldn't bring myself to admit. The articles, the interviews, the viewing of countless hours of BDSM themed videos, and of course Mistress Arlene, had drawn me to this moment. Was I simply titillated by the scandalous nature of the acts between consenting adults, acts of pain and humiliation that I had never experienced, or did it speak to my core? She knew I wanted this. She was forcing me to say it out loud.

"I want this ... for myself." I could feel my world expanding, like the magnificent vista I was witnessing. Submission was freedom for me. I chose to be free.

"Do you need to be anywhere soon?"

"No. I took the week off to pursue this story." I wasn't planning on driving back to New Orleans until Sunday. "But I do have to be back to work on Monday."

"Which is where?"

"Bingham and Morrison. It's a regional accounting firm headquartered in New Orleans."

"I see." I'm sure she didn't.

She let go of the hand railing and turned her back on the view. "Let me show you the rest of the house."

We left the vestibule and entered a long, wide corridor. There were two doors on my right that were closed. We walked by them, and Gwen never looked at them as we passed. At the end of the hallway, double doors were open to a master suite. In the middle was a large canopied bed with ornately carved wooden posts supporting a canopy of what looked like white Irish linen. The bed was oriented so the person in bed could enjoy the view of the water out of the set of French doors.

We walked past the bed and I couldn't help skimming my hand across the smooth ironed surface of the white cotton duvet cover. The hardwood of the bedroom gave way to the limestone tile of the bathroom, which was the size of the living room in my apartment. On my left was a bidet and double sinks contained within a countertop suspended from the wall. The countertop was a solid piece of wood, probably mahogany, with a marine grade varnish on it that glistened from the afternoon sun that was streaming through the bathroom windows. On my right was a free standing elongated oval tub that looked both beautiful and functional. Straight ahead of me was an oversized shower with double nozzles to accommodate two people.

"This is my special place. The place where I can spend hours, either soaking in my tub and reading a trashy novel or taking a long, hot shower." She said it with reverence, as if she were describing a private chapel.

I would have killed for a bathroom like this. I had a one piece molded plastic shower stall in my bathroom. The bathroom door barely cleared the toilet when you opened it.

"Would you like to try it?"

"Excuse me?" Were my ears playing tricks on me again?

"I mean the tub. Did you want to sit in it?"

I did. I always wanted a soaking tub. I nodded and slipped off my canvas tennis shoes and stepped into the tub in my socks. I laid against the porcelain surface, the angle of recline perfect for a long, luxurious bath.

"Umm. This is heaven. I can imagine sitting in hot water up to my shoulders." I looked to my right out the windows and towards the open sea. The dark clouds were moving closer, and I could see faint jagged lines of light as lightening was hitting the water many miles out.

"Take one with me. Now."

"Now?" I asked, startled at her invitation.