Leaving Money on the Table: A Rant

Since my tetchy computer has me all cranky and anti-email at the moment (posting blogs is much easier) a word to the wise:

When you visit a professional domina(trix) -- any one, not just me -- and you present your Tribute, please have it in an envelope. If you do not have access to an envelope prior to your appointment, make sure to place it in a Tribute box, if one is provided. If your Domina does not have a specific place for you to place your Tribute, you should, at the very least, have the correct amount counted out in advance to hand to her with your apologies for not having "wrapped" your gift appropriately.

Few things shave weeks off my career like watching a client fumblingly count through a clutch of twenties in front of me (who are you? Bob Barker?) or seeing a wad of bills left on my cocktail table, like I'm some ... Waitress.

Drag

If you've sent me an email recently and I haven't responded, it's not because I don't want to ... My computer's been all gummed up for no obvious reason, making navigating Gmail an awkward annoyance. I get too frustrated to reply to /initiate emails past the top of my inbox. I've had compugeeks look at it, fiddled with msconfig, run assorted virus scans, removed extraneous software, defragged, blah blah blah and still pages are super slow to load, keystrokes are slow to respond, and tabbing between windows is glacial. Laptop's just turned two years old. Grrr.

So I'm going to keep trying to sort it out. Maybe it's time to buy a Mac, loath as I am to spend that money right now.

If there's something you really need from me in the meantime, please call me, even if it's not phone hours. For now, it's okay.

An Orleans Experience

We were three hours into our conversation. A good bottle of Sancerre held just a few drops; our wine glasses were cloudy with fingerprints. Mid-sentence, I stood up and kept talking as I walked across the room, grabbed a wee pad and spread it on the carpet near us.

"Stand up. Lie down," I said, interrupting my story. He is still dressed. I unbutton his shirt and pull it down, just past his shoulders.

Still talking (about what? music? what it feels like to hurt someone? a trip I'd taken? I forget.), I slide off my panties from under my dress and toss them on the chair.

I stop talking. My mouth floods with saliva. I crouch over his chest, look into his eyes, and say, "Open."

The drool flows out from my mouth to his, like water from a pitcher. He swallows, moaning a little. I shift, now kneeling high over his mouth which is hidden by the hem of my dress. Our eyes are locked.

"Open."

I flood his mouth with my piss. Under my dress, I can feel it running down my leg, splashing off his cheek. His legs kick and thrash behind me. When I'm done, I use the back of his head to dry the piss from my leg. I put my panties back on, take my place again in my chair, and pour the last bit of wine in my glass.

Just Sayin' ...

It's peony season.

I love peonies.

If you called Academy Floral at 212.222.0771 and asked them to send peonies to Troy Orleans at 2753 Broadway #103, New York, NY 10025 I would get them!

It All Began with Popcorn

During my recent trip to the Southern Virginia town I grew up in, I ended up spending the night at the home of myveryfirstboyfriend (and his wife and twin sons). I had a very early flight and he lives close to the airport. We munched on fine North Carolina barbecue and the boys showed me their video games and tick bites. The wife put the kids to bed and excused herself as well, saying she was exhausted after two nights of partying.

So it was just me and Adam, sitting on the porch. He was sipping some vodka concoction, I cradled a cup of chamomile tea.

One of the things I've loved about our relationship is that, well, we still have one. We don't talk every day, but we IM here and there to keep up on the important stuff. We still have a love for each other and even though he did grow up to be a Republican computer geek, we still have lots of stuff in common. Including kink.

Except when we were kids, we didn't call it kinky. We were just teenagers having our first kiss at a screening of "The Breakfast Club" (with my cousin as chaperone). I wanted to eat my popcorn but I didn't want to stop kissing him. So I put the popcorn in my mouth and pushed it into his with my tongue. I asked if he wanted a drink and I whistled my Coke into his mouth, too.

Once we started having sex, I wasn't tying him up. I just couldn't wait until he was completely out of his clothes before jumping on him, his pants pooled around his ankles, his arms caught in his shirt sleeves. He'd come in my mouth and I'd spit it back in his not to humiliate him but so he could taste what I tasted.

"You sucked my big toe one time," he told me on the porch.

"No WAY!" I protested. "Really?" And then I remembered just loving him so much then the way you can only really do when you're a teenager and just wanting to devour every bit of him all the time. Even his toes.

"Yeah, and you used to give me ice cube blow jobs and bite my nipples with ice in your mouth, too."

*****

People ask me all the time if I could have a vanilla relationship and I always say, "Of course." This is why. Because a "vanilla" relationship looks pretty much like a "kink" one to me. I mean, as long as the root of whatever we're doing is love and desire for each other, what's the difference if I'm taking him with a strap-on or wrapping my legs around him in missionary or keeping him in a chastity cage for a week or drenching his back with butterfly kisses? It's all part of the continuum of mature intimacy, no?

If I hadn't become a professional dominant, I probably wouldn't have ever graduated to putting my lover in thousands of dollars worth of bondage gear. Or sticking steel rods down his urethra. Or electrocuting his balls. Instead maybe we'd have one of those "fun drawers" next to the bed with stuff like wrist/ankle restraints, a paddle, a few vibrators/dildos, a blindfold.

But I am a Prodom. Now, I've got the gear, the space, the inclination, and the education. So my sex life's gotten a little more elaborate. Some times.

******

Back on the porch, Adam tells me he's getting more and more into chastity and cuckolding. His wife is slowly coming around to accommodating his desires (her "partying" was a continuation of a recent seduction of a 26 year old guy from the neighborhood that Adam is achingly excited by). I asked him if he thought his cuckold interest was a sublimation of his bisexuality. (Uh, yeah. That was a surprise.) He thought no. "If I want to suck cock, I do," he said.

Turns out, I might be responsible for his cuckolding thing too. My next boyfriend after Adam was, shall we say, a little close to home. (Hey, it was a small town and I was a busy teen. I just grabbed what was handy.)

******

I know a lot of Dommes who like to play the "kinkier than thou" game. "Oh, I've been beating up boys since preschool!" I can look back and find plenty of examples of me being "dominant" or "sexually aggressive" or "freaky" or "kinky" .... but at the time, I wasn't putting labels on my behavior. I mean, I remember playing "Atom Smashers" in Kindergarten. This was a game where I'd order the boys to sit with their legs spread on the floor and then try to mash their penises between colored PlaySkool blocks (the red rectangle and yellow triangle were particularly effective, as I recall). I just never thought of this behavior as anything other than precocious until I became a Domme and was trying to figure out where all this was coming from "out of nowhere" at age 33.

I guess my point is that in some ways, I have no idea where this all started or why. It's not like I can point to some seminal moment, such as hiding under a desk and seeing my teacher's shoes and stockings and being excited. But, like, talking to Adam it's clear that my "kink," if that's what you want to call it, has always been with me. Maybe it's nice to have a label for it now. "Oh, okay. I'm 'kinky.'" But, ya know, ironically enough, even saying I'm "outside the norm" just feels kinda limiting.

French Brazillian

There's a thread on Max Fisch right now about people with ethnic fetishes. MVX and I were talking about how there are lots of women at Houses who're advertised as being a particular ethnic flava of the month. Clients will call asking for a particular type and the answer's always, "Sure, we've got that!" Whatever it takes to get him in the door. So, that hot Central Asian Mistress of your dreams? She's actually Central American with artfully made up eyes. The spicy Latina with the generous hips? More like a Black Ivy Leaguer from the Bronx. It reminds me how much "domination" is really all about the fantasy for some people.

When I started at Luxuria, our receptionist, who'd previously answered phones for a prominent outcall escort service, said that callers were asking about my "nationality" and she wondered what she should say.

"Tell them I'm an American," I said, rolling my eyes. I sighed. "I dunno, baby. As long as you don't tell them I'm an 'Ebony Mistress' I don't care. Can't you just say I'm smart and attractive and really kinky. Isn't that enough?"

But that's not how it works ... at least not for typical House clientèle. So we decided I'd be "French-Brazilian" because, as the receptionist pointed out, it positions me as both "classy" and "sexy" according to the stereotypes. (Why is there no eye rolling emoticon in Blogger?) One of the many reasons I'm happy not to be a House Domme anymore.

For the record, I'm not French. Or Brazilian.

But I love French food and French wine. And lately I've noticed in session that I tend to talk to myself, and sometimes my clients, in bits of Spanish, though that's not quite Portuguese, it's sorta close. About as close as I am ethnically to Brazilian.

Real life, I find, is so much more compelling than fantasy.

Eighties Baby

He wasn't a total novice. He'd sessioned three times before coming to me, each time with a different Mistress for no longer than two hours. He lives at least a two hour train ride away. Said he really wanted to explore heavy bondage and abandonment. Asked if he could be considered for the Orleans Experience.

Oh, and he's 23.

I've played with a handful of clients under 30. Youngest guy I ever saw was maybe 21. Blew me away (though he was a professional athlete so that kinda skewed his maturity level (not to mention disposable income).

In my experience, 20-something players are either absolutely amazing or they totally suck. No gray areas with them. When they're great, it's because they are so enthusiastic, open minded, curious, and remarkably unconflicted about their kink (not to mention, they're typically single, out or both so marks are rarely a problem) that playing with them is energizing and a joy. When they suck it's because they're arrogant, conceited, pillow biting, little "do me" babies with no respect for anyone's needs other than their own.

Fortunately this 23 year old belongs in the former category.

Still, when I play with the young ones (though this applies to novices of any age as well), I always feel a little guilty. Like a corrupter.

I had this one strapped down to the bondage table at the start of the scene. Corset collar. Fist mitts. Leather waist cincher. His legs hoisted high. I was fixin' to shave his lush thatch of pubic hair bare. Then I leaned over and caressed his face, looked deeply into his trusting eyes and said, "Oh, honey. I am going to make you kinkier than you ever could imagine."

In his feedback email, the first line reads: "I made a colossal mistake with the chastity cage. I really want it on right now. Without it, I feel like I've left the house without my wallet or watch."

See?

You know, I ... I .... it's like, on the one hand, "My god, what have I done!?! He's 23! He should be drinking beer and passing out atop lush co-eds, not craving the grip of a chastity cage!"

On the other hand (and both feet), I couldn't be more thrilled. Gosh, you shoulda seen my grin when I read his email. While I write this and think about our experience. It's incredibly rewarding for me to know that not only have I given them a great session, but that I've been able to take them down paths they perhaps never even knew existed and have them find the foreign landscape not only beautiful, but a place they want to visit again and again.

And that's so scary -- like, the responsibility of that -- but it's so real, too.