I’ve always had an exploratory attitude towards sex. It truly blossomed from me going downtown with a few friends to check out the ‘red’ district; it’s the spot downtown where the homeless find refuge, the drug pushers come out at night, the neon signs of the strip club illuminate the debris riddled streets. During the day though, it’s the perfect place for yuppies to go and ogle the deviancies of the sexual underworld, cracking jokes and saying, “That’s what she said.” At every advert.

Me and my friends went into a sex shop and I was immediately drawn to the leather and spandex section in the far back corner. There were thick ropey whips and gimp suits lining the walls. When I reached out and touched the rubber of one of the suits, I felt a chill run through me. Like something was awakening inside of me. It just felt so right even if I’d been told it was wrong, a laugh, something to be ridiculed. So, for a laugh, I purchased a Dom outfit. All of my friends thought it was quite funny, but I could not wait to get home and try it on.

I looked at myself in the mirror after returning home. All black, fishnets, long heel boots, militaristic shining cap, thick leather corset with shiny metal loops. It was too much; I rushed to my bed where my laptop rest and began ordering floggers, feather teasers, candles, and paddles. I would have denied that I knew what I was doing in the moment, but I knew.

It wasn’t long before I began chatting with people online about this newfound hobby. Tons of men would message me saying things like:

Punish me!

Step on my balls!

Sometimes conversations would go on normally for a few days. At this time, I was only looking for information and trying to figure myself out. Then these normal messages would become sexy or nefarious:

I know we’ve been talking for a bit. Would you like to meet up and bend me over your knee?

Or.

I’ll drink from a bottle while you change my diaper.

I must admit, that last one was definitely not my thing.

Within a few weeks of teasing guys online, I started meeting them in basements or hotel rooms. What a thrill that was! I swear, I would get so excited that I’d leave bruises all down their naked bodies, thrashing the paddle against their soft peachy bums till they were tomato red. They were never allowed to come to fruition. But when I would get home, I sure would. It was electric, explosive; I would grip the frayed ends of a whip and bite my pillow. It was great.

As with any niche, there are the fanatics that don’t understand that moderation is the key to pleasure. I began getting mail from admirers, men would begin contacting me on LinkedIn, and a few times I received flowers at work from someone I’d never met. I suppose you could say that I was beginning to make a name for myself in the community. It was both flattering and disconcerting, but as long as these things were manageable it would be fine, right?

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I ignored the red flags.

They began showing up at my house and I had to have bars installed on my windows. Bigger locks were put on my doors.

I am a receptionist by day, and one afternoon at work, my male boss dropped a stack of papers in front of my desk. He whispered, “Sorry.” He pulled up the shins of his dress pants and got down on all fours, pointing his posterior in my direction. I kept my eyes glued to my computer screen, but no matter how I let my eyes lose focus, I still saw him shaking his rear end tauntingly back and forth out of my periphery. I did not report him to HR, because I did not want to be figured out by my friends and family.

For a while I stayed off the online forums and chat rooms and put my gear in the closet, but it always called me back. Sometimes I would enter a private video call and command the man on the other end of the line. It was nice but not enough to soothe. I wish there were no stigma surrounding these things. That would have been nice. Or maybe the naughtiness was a part of what made it what it was.

I stopped altogether at some point and forgot about it, trying to date normally. It was nice until I’d had a few too many drinks out on a date with a really nice young man with sandy blond hair. Things were getting hot and heavy. He tried shoving me onto my bed and I pushed him over to straddle him. I was a bit angry. I did not want to be a helpless little nothing. In my swimmy-headedness I removed a flogger from my closet and struck him across the chest. He swatted at me, screaming, “You crazy bitch.” He stormed from my home. I shouldn’t have done that, I know, but it still hurt to hear him say that.

Once again, I was drawn online. I started drinking more often. My divided life was no easy thing.

I quit my day job and started working full time as a Dom. This only served to further isolate me.

My world was filled with dark blank rooms and my ears were filled with the howls of men on the brink of pain and pleasure.

It seemed that every time I would look out the window of my home, I’d see the dark outline of a man standing on the sidewalk across the street. Sometimes there would be a crowd of them. I would check my door to make sure it was locked and break into a fresh bottle of alcohol.

Then I awoke one night. It felt as though there were a set of eyes on me. Standing at the foot of my bed there was a figure with square shoulders. He wore the expression of a manic little boy glazed in the moonlight coming through my window. “You’ve been a bad girl.” He said.

My jaw was hard to move, my cheeks were flushed, my skin crawled. “What do you mean?”

He faded into nothingness and I was stuck in a casing of fear, staring at the shadowy corner he’d been standing.

I did not sleep that night. I did not move from the spot in my bed. The inclination to pull the blankets over my head did strike me, but I didn’t want to be blind and terrified.

Sometime before dawn, I fell to a hot sweaty sleep.

Things were normal for a few days. Until one night that I decided to peek out of my window in the den. There they were. A line of maybe ten or fifteen men, showing their bare asses, all on all fours; among them were my ex-boss and that sandy blond-haired young man. They looked over their arched backs, grinning maniacally. I cried. Should I call the police? Would they believe me? Other people passed the line of men without taking notice of them. Was I losing my goddamn mind? My arms sprung up with gooseflesh and I drew the blinds shut.

As the night drew on, I could see the shadowy outlines of the men standing against the windows. When I peeked through the blinds, there they were, grinning, some toying with their chests.

I just wanted them to go away.