My first real experience as a dominatrix

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

lao tzu

I have a confession.  It isn’t much of a confession.  Have you ever looked back at your own evolution and found that it all makes sense, as if you can see a path that is so clearly marked, and how on earth couldn’t you have seen the pattern forming?

Something profound is bubbling inside of me.  Becoming a woman is becoming me.  It seems a silly statement, and so obvious, and yet it has not been at all obvious to me who “me” is or was ever intended to be.

I became submissive out of my shame for being a man.  It was my way of saying to women “I am not like them” and it is the main reason I am still alive today.  It is hard to under-dramatize this.

I cannot ignore either the immense frustration I had as a pre-pubescent boy to find that all of my girlfriends began to love and lust after all the ‘icky’ boys that we had talked about as we all entered puberty, and their friendship was withdrawn as I became a boy, even if I had never been one of the ‘icky’ones.  To lose community and to feel the body transform into the object of disdain or even hate that is the lot of the trans person, is living torture.  My response, physical, emotional, spiritual was submission.

I became a puppy, not in a kink-scene literal sense, but in an emotional sense.  Falling in love with someone came with puppy-like devotion.

But I am discovering that being trans, and taking the steps to save myself, namely becoming as female as I possibly can, taking every step humanly possible to feel it and to live it, is much more than window dressing. The impact of oestrogen is so utterly complete that I am being re-engineered in every aspect of my being.

As a trans woman, I have nothing to apologize for.  I can let go of the shame I felt belonging to the tribe of men.  I can join the tribe of women, at least those that will have me, which seems to be almost all women under 35, all women over 70, and most of those in-between…

This concept of being a doormat which I keep touching on, is something I never recognised in myself.  It has nothing to do with being submissive.  It has everything to do with self-protecting by using “nice” as a way to avoid conflict and ostracism.  In other words it has little to do with sex and everything to do with our early lives.  I haven’t figured out yet why it seems to be more common amongst women than men, but it is a very real and dysfunctional affliction.

People-pleasing is also a core part of who I am that I refuse to take on this journey any further.  I will not be a female doormat.

And as my daily life accumulates the residue of anti-trans discrimination—and yes, when someone stares at me as a freak, that counts too—I feel this even more.  I have a motivation to fight.  And while that might come out in relation to one person or one concept, as it did in my feelings towards the aggressive representative of a charity, it is also a very strong general feeling.  And I lay it at the feet of the patriarchy.

Gender roles matter to people who are invested in the status quo.  That is most men, and the many women who have been seduced into thinking that their subjugation is preferable to fighting back.  I understand and sympathise with how exhausting a fight is.  Especially as someone who is really not a fighter.  But I can’t see my way through any other way.

[I’m reading a great book which I bought because I thought it was about trans people ‘passing’ and moving beyond the tyranny of feeling the need to do that.  As it happens, the book is about ‘passing’ for anyone who is not a white man in America, ie most people.  It is a powerful book.  I will write it up when I am done—or rather, add it to my pile of books not yet written up.]

Because of what is happening in my life, and my refusal to be a victim, to accept the victim narrative, I have this growing need and desire to fight back.  And this impulse is gathering steam and led me to a weird and wonderful evening which presages my future.

The Companion and I have been spending a good deal of time together of late.  I am sweet on her.  It is very weird to experience what we are doing together alongside my confession to her of my profoundly submissive nature.  When a woman knows this of me and doesn’t take advantage of me, I like her even more.  It is beautiful and doubly powerful that someone knows my vulnerability, knows how she could assert control for her own short term gain, but chooses not to, instead encouraging the development of a deeper and more emotional friendship bond.  

What are we doing together other than barreling around Europe and having lots of laughs?  Exploring the world of the dominatrix, not as observers, but in learning the skills and actually doing it.  This has involved practical skills training, marketing, branding, outfits, attitude.  And then not so long ago, actually being it.

She took me to a nightclub for a femdom evening.  It was the first time I have ever been to a nightclub and not been asked to pay.  I had to become a member, and the man who signed me up, took my ID, deadnamed me in the sense that he used my real name instead of the name I was travelling under, and misgendered me on my card.  I promptly lost it.  Not on purpose either.  It just vanished.  I spent an hour looking for it, not finding it, so went back to the entry with The Companion and now two slaves in tow, and said, “I still can’t find the membership card.”

The owner said, “I’ll do it,” looked me up, then criticized his employee for misgendering and misnaming me anyway.  He then apologized to me and gave me my new card.

The Companion is an attractive woman.  Very.  The men flocked to her like bees to honey.  We sat next to each other, and part of me was wondering whether I would be able to take it.  When we walk around in public together in the vanilla the world, everyone talks to me first, almost ignoring her, to the point where I have felt embarrassed for her.  She has never said anything, but it is true that in vanilla public, I get a lot of attention, whether I want it or not.  “Are you a movie star?”  “Are you a model?”  “Are you in fashion?” these are the typical questions, and when you are standing with a gorgeous woman and they don’t even look at her, it must feel a bit strange.  One of my besties can’t stand it.  She told me so.

Well, in the dungeon space, the roles were reversed.  Men would bypass me and go straight to her.

One young man sub type, who was wearing a harness on top and a skirt below was very chatty and friendly.  He is a self-described puppy.  He wanted to talk to The Companion only she was occupied with a man in a dog suit who was lying on his back under her high-heeled feet and lost in sub-space as she pulled on the heavy metal collar and chain around his neck.

So he struck up a conversation with me.  I was wearing a very short leather skirt with lot’s of buckles and straps and a leather bustier/corset which showed my boobs to be real.  Fishnets and boots.  And I was carrying a long riding crop with a flat leather end.

The boy asked me, “so, other than dressing like this, what turns you on?”  Talk about being mis-gendered and offended.  It was important for me to hear it.

“I’m not sure what you mean?” I asked.

“What fetishes do you like?” he asked, another red flag for me, “like, other than dressing in a woman’s clothes.”

“I don’t do this because it turns me on,” I answered, “this is what I wear.  I mean, not this particular outfit, but I mean women’s clothes.”

“I love skirts,” he said, “it turns me on to dress like this: skirts, stockings.”

“Yes, you are a cross-dresser,” I said.  “I’m not.  I’m a woman.  That’s why I dress like this.  Wearing women’s clothes doesn’t turn me on at all.  I wear them because it is who I am.”

“Oh wow,” he said stepping back and taking me in, “that’s really cool.”

“What turns you on?” I asked.

“Being dominated by a woman, being treated like a puppy, being walked, collared, leashed.”

“Do you like to be spanked?”

“Oh no, I don’t like pain.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said and then smacked my hand with the end of the riding crop.

A very aggressive Italian man leaned across the bench in front of us and placed his arm between The Companion and me.  He tried to chat her up.  He professed to be submissive, but his behaviour was anything but.  He displeased her intensely.  She eventually got up and left with her dog crawling faithfully behind her and then he looked to me and asked, “what did I do wrong?”

“Pretty much everything.”

“Like what?”

“You came across as an aggressive asshole.”

“I didn’t mean it,” he said, “what should I do?”

“Do you think your approach is how you should talk to a dominatrix.  To a woman?  Any woman?”

“I don’t know?”

“How would you talk to a princess, or to a Goddess?  Would you dare to just come up to her and start talking?  Would you dare to sit without being invited?  Would you dare to lean in as you did?  Would you dare to monopolize the conversation as you did?  Would you dare to talk to her in such a way?  Would you dare to tell her any of what you told her, to hit on her like that?  Do you think any woman on this earth who chooses to be a dominatrix, who is a dominatrix would have any time at all for a man like you?”

“What do I do?  I should go and apologize.”

“I think you should leave her alone.”

“Thank you so much for the feedback,” he got up and walked off.

The companion and her dog came back.  The puppy sat on the bench in front of where she and I were sitting. We agreed to get up and explore, so she and I went for a wander with a growing entourage.  I had resolved in my mind that to be recognised and accepted as female in this environment was really important to me.

There were quite a few transvestites.  Fully dolled up.  Heavily made up.  I can be certain that I was the only trans woman.  There were some shows and displays.  The evening’s theme was trampling, so there was that.  There was also some breath play, hot wax torture, and some Shibari going on.

The Companion and I covered the ground of the entire club and then found ourselves in an empty seating area.  There was a throne.  I suggested she sit in it.  “Oh,” she said, her face lighting up, “I’d like that.”  I stayed standing as her dog and her puppy soon found their way beneath her feet.  The puppy soon tired of being down there and got up.  I suggested that he lie across the leather bench with his ass upturned and that I would give him a beating, and he could look at her feet and suffer while I smacked him around.

“Not so hard,” he said as he lay across it, ass upturned.  I started slowly, but then had him jumping.  I checked in on him and he said, “you can hit me harder.”  So I did.  And this was repeated, until I was swatting him with a good still of sting and he was jumping around on the bench like a drop of water on a hot iron pan.

The Companion and I were smiling at each other.  The Italian pig came up.  I overhead their conversation between swats.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t approach you correctly.”

“Is that any way to talk to me?” she asked, “why aren’t you on your knees?”  She pointed to the ground.  He knelt.

“What did you want to say to me?” she asked when he was kneeling.

“Your friend is very nice,” he said of me, “she gave me some helpful feedback.”

“I’m not so nice,” The Companion said.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

“What are you sorry for?” she asked, “I want you to tell me everything you did wrong?”  And for the next ten minutes, she milked it.  And then, she said, “you may go now,” and he got up and left.  Thirty minutes later he was on the floor kissing her heels, but things move on.

When I had finished with the puppy, he wanted to hug me, and he was such a sweet little thing, I let him.  But I also realised that I had been really turned on by hitting him.  I was aroused by it.

I walked around and thought, “I like this, that felt good.”  One of the performers, a domme, winked at me as she walked past in professional solidarity.  I noticed a quiet man following me with his knees, sitting, being very submissive.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello Mistress,” he said, “I saw you spanking that man.”

“Did you like that?”

“Yes,” he said, “you seem very good at it.”

“Mmm,” I agreed, “but he cannot take very much, but I think you can take more, can’t you?  Much more.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Is that what you would like?” I asked.

“Very much,” he said.  “My girlfriend was going to come tonight but in the end she could not, so I came on my own.”

“Do you think she would like to see you be beaten?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Would you like to ask me?”

“Yes, please Mistress.  Will you whip me?”

“Yes baby I will,” I said.  He stood and removed his leather chaps, showing he had a leather g-string, codpiece thing.

“Please no face and no balls,” he said, “but anything else.”  I indicated he lie across the spanking bench and I strapped his wrists and ankles so that he couldn’t get away.

I have been whipped, flogged, caned, bull-whipped, scratched, slapped, punched and spanked by some very accomplished people in my life.  This is learning from the best, and I have done so.  And I applied those lessons assiduously, and for nearly an hour I worked this man over.  I also caressed him and cuddled him, and asked for permission to mark him, which I did.  He will have gone home with extensive markings on the backs of his thighs and his ass, and with line-welts on his shoulders.  I suspect he will remember the physical aspects of our play for a good week or so.

The Companion and I laughed across the room to each other, and she watched rapt as I worked him over.  I was surprised at the feelings inside of me.  I felt very tender towards him.  Mothering.  It was very strong.  So every slap or sequence of slaps came also with caresses.  I traced the tip of the whip around his most sensitive parts.  He whimpered in pleasure, cried out in pain, arched his back, and strained against his bonds.

I checked in from time to time and he was good to keep going.  When we stopped, he told me that he had never been whipped and beaten so beautifully before.  “You are so good at this,” he said rubbing his sore butt.  “May I hug you?” he asked.

“No baby,” I said, “but you may kneel and kiss my boot.”  He knelt and did just that.

“That was beautiful,” The Companion said, that glassy look of sex in her eyes.

“Oh my God,” I said, “I loved that.”

“Yes,” she said, “wasn’t this fun?”

“So fun.  We have to do it again.”

“I know,” she agreed.  “We will.  Are you ready to go?”

“Yes.”

The owner fetched our coats and said to both of us, “we hope to see you here again.”

“We’ll be back,” the Companion said.  And then we left, and I drove her.

“I like the puppy,” she said, “he’d make a good slave.”

“Perhaps, but I don’t think he has any money.”

“True.”

“I think I would like it even more if they paid me.”

“Yes.”

I felt utterly elated by the experience.  I know that you can only change men’s behaviour one man at a time.  But I really enjoyed receiving their submission, really, really.  And for some reason, I was able to have warmth in my heart for these men.  And maybe that is because on some level I understand them.  That their submission, as was mine, was a way of reaching out.

They seemed like such innocent babies in the moment of submission, and not at all in a bad way, and it felt beautiful for me to meet them there.  And I had no problem touching them, and holding space for them.  It was an extraordinary experience for me.

I know it won’t be the last.  I could feel my future in it.  And I can also feel this dominant female energy growing in me, perhaps in resistance to the discrimination I face, perhaps as part of my journey to let go of being a doormat.

I was reminded of how all the good dommes talk about how important it is to have experienced the lash from the bottom.  I knew how to be safe, but also how to tease and titillate and how to hurt just enough.  I have learned from the very best.  I know it.  And I thank them for what they have taught me and that I have learned to take those teachings in a new direction.

Submissive to a woman, but dominant to all men.  That’s me.

Happy holidays!