Am I kinky? NY Pride and Torture Garden

Last year I attended my first ever pride parade, the NY one, and then went to my first ever Torture Garden party.  It was one heck of a day.  At pride, I just cried my eyes out.  Seeing so much life in this community and seeing so many of my trans brothers and sisters in all shapes, ages, sizes, colours and forms of expression.  It was overwhelming in a beautiful way.  I went on my own.

There are times when we look back in regret. At Pride 2022, I was really settling into being out, but was not formally and fully out even with my family. My Aunt lay dying, and I had been the most diligent visitor over many, many months. I knew the end was coming, and I wanted to see her, for her to see me, as my mother’s most similar sister…and more importantly, as the only one who would have been delighted to see me as trans. I didn’t go for a variety of trivial reasons, though I did go fully out to her funeral, burial, and funeral party. Not all was lost, this was how I met Star Child–amazingly, a friend of the family.

Later, at TG, I also went on my own, which was a big step, as I have never done anything “social” on my own…especially something like this.  But there are things that I couldn’t or wouldn’t do as a man that I seem less afraid of as a trans woman.  This was one of them.  And I met people in the queue on the way in, and we danced together all night.

I bought only general admin tickets that first time.  That meant no access to the play spaces or private bars.  I wanted to try it again, and so vowed to myself I would, and would take someone.  I had no idea at all until last minute, but decided to not force things and to just let it happen.

The same with Pride.  I would have happily gone on my own again, but instead ended up in the company of a lovely human I have come to know, who also happens to be an SW, and a group of her gay male friends.  That was a first for me.  And weird thing?  It was okay.  

Readers of this blog will know that I have a bit of a hang-up about gay men, that I find their male energy too male, like an overload.  I also have never liked gay jokes or gay humour.  In a way I shouldn’t.  But I have been molested on separate occasions (between the ages of 6 and 16) by different men I can only assume were gay or were repressed gay, and that has contributed enormously to my distaste for all things male.

But there was even a man there I thought was cute.  Hot actually.  He had a trim little goatee, perfect skin, perfect physique, kind of petite, lithe, muscled in a defined rather than bulky way.  And then he said he was trans and taking Testosterone, and it all made sense.  I have written before about how I often feel a stronger affinity to the dysphoria expressed by my trans brothers than my trans sisters, one of aspiration rather than one of a divine mistake, respectively.

We had a lovely time.  We went out for drinks, several times, thronged in and out of the parade, watched, talked, while my friend attempted a difficult conversation in a long-distance relationship which is eating her up.  It felt good to listen to her hash it out to me before and after.  To just listen.

And as for TG.  There was mainly a nap ahead of time.  And a gorgeous dress which had spoken to me from its place on a very secure rack in a department store.  So secure that it required someone to escort me with it to the changing room, wait for me outside, and then escort the item to the till while I finished trying other things on.  It was the most exquisite black dress, made really and truly just for me.  With slits up the legs to the waist and long black panels all the way to the ground front and back.  And on top, just really wide straps from the waist, over the shoulders and down the front.  Perfect for a small-chested trans girl like me.  All held together with a little strap tied at my back.

My date wore vinyl.  A happy and striking see-through skirt over fishnets, combat boots.  She wore a leather biker jacket.  She’s a domme.  Retired or semi-retired, but with years of experience behind her.  Going with her was a treat beyond belief.  This was a purely social engagement…I had met her recently at a an evening out in London—a gathering of dommes.

It was a very different experience.  For one, she knew many of the professional dommes there.  She introduced me around.  Something that could have never happened to me without her.  What else happened.  We got high together.  Oops.

I haven’t smoked weed in a very, very long time.  I forgot that when I was in Uni, the last time I smoked it, that I just grow silent.  The man who sold it said, don’t smoke too much, it’s not the same as it used to be…what he meant was that it was a lot stronger than it was “back in the day”.  He wasn’t kidding.  Three hits later and I couldn’t feel my legs.

This was a problem for me.  I was wearing the highest heels of my life.  3” stillettos.  And I am not so good yet on high heels at the best of times.  Plus the venue had lot’s of really scary stairs.  So when my date suggested we go upstairs, and then downstairs, and then upstairs, and then downstairs, I trailed behind her in terror.

I was also really agreeable to everything.  I bumped into a domme I know separately.  A friend of actual Mistress.  She was friendly and reached out to say hi.  I am not sure what I said, or if I even spoke, I think I just looked at her and smiled and shook her hand.  I was behaving like a silent submissive…a gigantic piece of eye candy.  A Dom friend of mine suggested that it would have looked perfect.  And that is how people would have likely processed it.  

There was a domme I had hoped to meet who had been at the pre-party that Star Child got us thrown out of, but since she was friend of the venue owner, and so too was my date of the evening, I was worried about how small the world could become.  In the end, when I met the venue owner again, I apologised for the fun that Star Child had had at her expense, and she was very gracious about it.

The domme who ate me alive one time was present on the evening, but I avoided her.  Something else happened that night.  When I walked in, I was wearing a beautiful collar.  It reminded of those neck-lengthening African collars.  Mine was a high-necked stainless steel collar.  About 30 minutes after walking in, I unlocked it and took it off.  My date said, “good.”  And in truth, it was good.  It is time to take the collar off.  I really don’t feel submissive anymore.  At least not in the way that I did when this process began.  Am I still a slave?  Yes.  How do I make that connection?

My slavery is ultimately linked to intimacy.  It is almost certainly tied to a woman or women that I develop love feelings for.  It is true that a woman, such as a pro-domme, who cultivates the kind of energy that might exist in a power exchange dynamic is going to have an unfair advantage, a head start.  But it seems that such relationships have a finite life…and anyway, and perhaps, finally, I don’t want that anymore either.  I don’t wish to continue my life as a client.

There is one human to whom I will make an exception for that.  Mistress.  There are many, many reasons why.  But it is mainly that even though I am a client, and accept that I shall forever be a client, I am not made to feel as one.  The flow is easy.  Mostly.  And that makes all the difference in the world.

But there I was standing in the middle of this enormous play space, the kind that anyone would yearn to have as their own achingly hip New York loft-living space.  And a few steps from me was a tall, enigmatic blonde woman, hair cascading down over her shoulders to the small of her back.  She turned and smiled at me.  And I never do this.  Ever.  But I walked up to her.

“I can’t get over how beautiful you are,” I said and her whole body smiled back at me.

“You’re very elegant,” she said.

“Thank you.”

My date was off in the corner speaking with a group of high-profile NY dommes.

“Are you here on your own?” the blonde asked.

“Not really.”

“Me neither.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, he’s on the door.  I’m waiting.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“A spanking.  Would you like to spank me?”  She had a mystery smile as she turned her side to me, showing off the tension in her thigh and buttocks, tight with youth and hours in the gym.  A physical beauty that would electrify any room.

“I’ve never done that before,” I said thinking about how I felt about the prospect of striking a woman.  I also realised that there were pro-Dommes present who “knew” me as a whipping boy and who might teach me…

I had seen some serious spanking and whipping that evening.  And in truth, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.  The site of a muscled, bearded, stern-looking man going at a woman’s buttocks with ferocity and very loud cracks had unsettled me.  That was back in the main bar.  The thing was that I had met her earlier.  She was present when I bought my heels, had even tried on the same style.  She knew where I was going that night and had told me at the time in not so many words, that she was going to show how submissive she was.

I have never seen someone take a beating like she had.  After a particularly hard crack she would arch her back and kneel straight up on the spanking bench.  He would come to her, touch her, brush her ass, play with her nipples, hold her with a firm grip, but there was nothing gentle about it, nothing comforting.  And he just seemed to embody a kind of violence.

After the first time I saw her on the spanking bench I bumped into her headed towards the dance floor all smiles and joy.  He was nowhere in sight.  And now, in this private space for the after-party I could see her in the corner of the room, she was in a large cage on the floor, pensive, locked up, lost in sub-space.  I think of her often.

As I stood next to the blonde, a creature almost tall as me, I could feel new desire in me made possible by oestrogen, a desire to dominate that is not born out of a desire for conquest, but out of a desire to caress, to hold, to heal.  I did want to touch her.  Did want to meet her needs.  Everything else was just an excuse.

Later that night, curled up in my bed, there was much to think about.  Two days later, I was in a studio with two dominatrixes, one trainee, and three male sissies.  I was there to learn the art of female domination.  And you know what, I felt real compassion for these men.  Something I have never felt before.  Their vulnerability.  That we were in one of the only spaces where they could feel free.  And you know what’s weird?  One of them leaned over to me and said, “I recognise you from your blog.”

Look at that.  Considering that the only true (ish) full-length picture of myself that I have posted on this blog is of me in a diaper, I think that is rather choice.  Here it is again.  Would you let her dominate you?  Maybe.  The spark in her eyes is real.  Mischievous.  Do you know when I took this shot?  Just after ex-Mistress left me having fed me a life-changing bottle of something or other.  I felt so different.  So powerful.  So in me.  And that was the day that I took off the diaper and chose to put on a skirt and go outside for the first time.  That was the day I was reborn.

What do I conclude from this?  That growing up was something I could have never done as a man.  But now that I am really and truly discovering myself, right now experiencing the physical and emotional internal landscape of a teenaged girl, I begin to taste what personal responsibility means, what it can feel like.  And something else.  Mercy.  To show mercy to others, to show mercy to myself.