When I was twenty-five, I knew about dominatrixes but I didn’t know how to find one. Some itch, some kink within me wanted to submit to an attractive but powerful woman who must be obeyed.

I had no idea where that desire came from. In the early 1970s, information about sexual matters was hard to dig up. Sometimes I thought that my proclivities were rare, instead of being extremely common among men (and women too!) as I found out later. Back then many people thought that their little interests were almost exclusively theirs,

When I was in college, I had fantasies about one of the younger female professors there, a woman by the name of Anna Strauss. I’d guess she was in her mid-thirties, and she had dark hair and dark-rimmed glasses.

I so much wanted her to spank and paddle my bare backside, either over her lap or while I was bent over the desk in her office. My need for that was so intense that I tried to find some pretext, no matter how ridiculous, to get her to do that to me. Maybe I could fail to turn in my art history final paper on time, and I’d go to her office to ask for an extension of the deadline.

That seemed extremely unlikely. Professors didn’t inflict corporal punishments on their students, no matter how wayward they were in their coursework.

Also, it would be highly unseemly to even broach the topic with a woman I barely knew. I would likely get into trouble if she reported me to the school’s administration. Perhaps such a thing had happened at a college somewhere, but it must have been a sheer coincidence that two people with compatible fetishes met each other.

Nevertheless, the imagined scenario became one of my favorite masturbation scenes. Usually, we were in her office or an empty classroom. I could vividly picture my pants down around my ankles as Professor Strauss whacked my exposed buttocks with her hand, a ruler, or a belt. You’re a shamefully negligent student, and I’m going to make you pay the price before I grant you an incomplete.

Three years after I graduated, I was going with a girl named Louise. We seemed to be getting along when we started, except when I jokingly (I was serious underneath) brought up the idea of us playing spanking games. She looked uncomfortable, and she said, “Barry, that seems rather peculiar, don’t you think? It’s obscene that you even mentioned it.”

I knew never to bring up that topic again. Yet, when I had the chance, I would jerk off and imagine Louise spanking me for some minor offense like being late for a date. Barry, I’m going to correct you for being a badly-behaved boyfriend.

My reply would be, perhaps, Louise, I’m sorry, but maybe intense discipline will help me mend my ways. Please, don’t hold back; beat me as hard as you can.

After about a year, my relationship with Louise was obviously winding down. I could sense when a woman was about to dump me and I knew that the end was near.

****   

During that period, I was working as a broker-trainee at a big financial institution, Cromwell, Bartleby, Stevens, and Yates. Our offices were located on Pine Street in New York, just one block north of Wall.

I had a buddy there named Eddie Molina. One evening in October 1976 we were having drinks at a nearby bar when I brought up, again jokingly, my secret wish to be submissive to a dominant woman. A couple of vodka and tonics helped loosen my tongue. I confessed to my guilt about masturbating while imagining my girlfriend doing the “peculiar” and “obscene” acts she wouldn’t do in real life.

Eddie took me seriously. “Hey, you already have a pretext. I happen to know this girl, Gilda Wasserman, who is a student at N.Y.U. As a side gig, she handles the sessions of some part-time dominatrixes. I could give you her number and she could probably fix you up with someone who could handle this.”

“Are you saying that she is sort of a ‘madame?’ ”

“You could call her that, but actually she is working for some people in the background. I suspect it’s one of the Mafia families; they’re big into these things. But that is on a need-to-know basis, and I don’t need to know.”

“So you’ve, well, used her services?”

“I sure have, twice in fact, and despite her mysterious background, Gilda is actually very nice. You’d have to meet with her first and tell her exactly what you want. She’ll set you up with the right girl, just like she did for me.”

“How much will this cost, if I may ask?”

“About $50 per hour for a session. If it’s something elaborate, like being tied up for a while, then it will require more time.”

“I think all I want is – you know, a spanking, not bondage.”

"Keep in mind that any ‘extras’ may be anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five dollars.”

“What extras?”  

Eddie didn’t smirk but told me flat-out. “If you get sexually aroused – and you probably will be – you can finish the session by jerking off while the girl watches. The going rate for that is an extra $25. None of Gilda’s ladies will give you a blowjob or handjob. That’s not what dominatrixes usually do.”

“There seems to be a lot of ‘extras’ in that business.”

“It’s that way with all sex workers. It’s worse than going to a car dealership and getting charged for rustproofing or something like that.”

“Where did you even find out about this Gilda?”

“That was easy. She advertised in that Zone rag.” The Zone was like a cross between the defunct East Village Other and Screw Magazine. “It was just this little classified ad. It didn’t use the word dominatrix, but said something about ‘men who wish for a strict woman to put them back on the straight path.’ ”

“And you said she’s a student?”

“Well, let’s face it, N.Y.U. is an expensive place to go.”

****

Gilda asked me to meet her at a bar in The Village. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but she seemed so young even though I only had four years on her. A person changes a lot in that short period of young adulthood. She seemed well-dressed compared to the typical undergraduates of that era. We spent nearly an hour going over the details.

She ordered a seltzer with lime while I got a vodka and tonic. Gilda joked, “You can have a real drink, but I have to stay sharp during these things.” Then she said, “You look a little nervous. You mentioned that you’ve never done this before.”

I fumbled around trying to respond to her. “It’s just that, I should have expected this, but you look, kind of like . . .”

She finished the sentence for me, “Like a nice college girl? That’s because I am a nice college girl!” She laughed, “Do you think you can talk frankly with me about this? Because I have to know all the details about what you want. So please, don’t be embarrassed.”

It was like an interview, although I would be the one paying the bill in the end. “Sure, I’ll certainly try.” God, did I really say something that lame? Yet it was difficult to talk to a woman about my private thoughts.

Gilda seemed unfazed. She managed to seem professional and relaxed at the same time. I guessed that she had already seen and heard a lot about people’s hidden desires.

I tried to be as complete as possible. I described my earlier fantasies about Professor Strauss and the more recent ones about Louise.

“So I assume you masturbate during these scenes?”

My face was warming and I knew I must be blushing. She smiled, “Well, of course you do, that is to be expected. It’s just that once in a while I get some guy who is too inhibited to even do that!”

We talked about my failing relationship with Louise. Gilda asked me, “Do you also think about punishing her too?”

I admitted that I did, but I didn’t specify my desire to smack her sassy little ass. Gilda said, “So you’re a ‘switch,’ if you know what that term means.” I said that I did, and she responded. “We could fix you up in a situation like that as well, but that’s not my particular department.”

The word department didn’t seem tongue-in-cheek. It reminded me of whatever organization was behind the scenes. I said, “Maybe we should deal with one thing at a time.”

After we talked further, she pulled a manila envelope out of her book bag. She selected some color photo prints from inside the folder.

“I think you should consider this lady; her name is Nora.”

There were several pictures of a young woman with a relatively short hairstyle – I think it’s called a bob-cut – and steel-rimmed glasses. It appeared that she was wearing little or no make-up. She was pretty but not head-turning gorgeous. In all of the shots, she was wearing a dark gray suit.

Overall, she had the appearance of an accounting major. “She doesn’t look like a dominatrix.”

“She usually doesn’t do the black leather thing. It’s more like the ‘professional look,’ I’d call it. She’s twenty-one, a senior like I am, but she attends a different school.”

As I examined the pictures, Gilda told me more. “She’s very smart and articulate. She will chide you during the session, that’s an important part of it, but she’s not verbally vicious unless you specify that.”

“She looks kind of serious, if that is the right word.”

“She’s very level-headed, I’d say. She has a nice balance of being firm yet reasonable. That’s what I’ve heard from clients who have called back to ask for her a second or third time.” She smiled, “Repeat customers are always a good sign.”

A couple of minutes later, Gilda said, “If you are interested, you’ll have to call her yourself and discuss further details. If you come to an agreement, you’ll have to pay me first. In cash, please. I’d suggest an hour and a quarter for this.”

That seemed like an odd increment of time, but it would still be around $63. “Yes, my friend told me about the cost.”   

“Call Nora and see how it goes. Every guy has been pleased with her so far.” I wondered how long Nora had been working at this, but I didn’t ask.

Gilda said, “Now you can tell her anything you want about yourself, whatever secrets you have never said to anyone before. But you cannot ask about her personal details – her school, where she lives, even her last name. She won’t answer them anyway, because she knows she doesn’t have to. But she will be polite about declining to reply.”

She had one more important fact for me. “We don’t operate on a call-girl basis here. You’ll have to meet Nora where she works at this.” What place could that possibly be? “I’ll tell you where and when to go when you come back to pay me.”

Gilda sounded very sure that I was indeed going through with this. In fact, she almost confirmed her expectations. “I’m sure you’ll be very satisfied with our services.”

******

I was instructed to call Nora at a certain time in the early afternoon. Since I couldn’t talk to her at my office, I had to use a phone booth downstairs. As a sort of an introductory freebie, perhaps, I could call collect and I wouldn’t have to reimburse her. The number was in the 212 area code, so I knew she was somewhere in the city.

Her voice was well-modulated when she spoke to me. Yet, it was difficult for me to talk to her at first. Wow, I’m on the line with a real dominatrix. I remembered her photos and tried to concentrate on what she looked like.

Some of my nervousness must have been apparent in my voice again, because in a few moments she said, “Relax, Barry, this is going to go fine. Gilda told me this is your first time doing this. You can talk to me freely about anything.”

“Actually, I’ve never – well, hired a woman before for anything.” Did I put that correctly?  “Ah, am I supposed to call you Mistress or something?”

She laughed at that. “Oh no, just Ms. Nora is fine. It’s not like you’re my slave. I’m just here to put men back on the course they have strayed from.” That sounded like what was in the classified ad.

She wanted to know how I wanted to be punished, and I forced myself to tell her. My preference would be over her lap, and she would then spank my bare behind with her hand. After being warmed up, I wanted to be struck with an implement of some kind.

“I’ve got several things I could use on you, like a big wooden brush, a paddle, and a tawse. I should call the last one a ‘school belt,’ because that’s the common term in this country.” Then she did reveal something about herself. “Some women use a cane, but I don’t. They are tricky to handle and a person could be injured by one.”

We soon talked about something else without any prompting from me. “Don’t be concerned if you get sexually aroused during a session. I mean, that’s the point of all this, right? However, if you have an urgent need to whack off at the end that will be an extra $25. You have to pay that if you come at all when there. That’s pretty reasonable, I’d say.”

I didn’t tell her that I had only done that with a woman a couple of times, and that was way back in my college years. Could I do that in front of a woman I had just met? I guessed that depended on my state of mind at the moment.

Then she mentioned a “safe word,” or phrase actually. I told her I knew what it meant. She liked the term, “tuna salad.” “That’s easy to remember, and I will remind you of it when you are there.”

“What happens if I cut the session short?”

“Oh, I see. We would partially reimburse you, but you would still owe something for my time.” Then she surprised me. “But Barry, I’ve never, ever had a guy do that. It’s just the opposite; they can’t get enough of it.”

She giggled as she imitated one of them. “ ‘Ms. Nora, I’ve been so bad. I need more punishment. Please whack my ass as hard as you can.’ They really say things like that.”

She asked me if I wanted her to play a role of some kind. “With your issue, I might be your therapist for example.”

“I really can’t think of anything.”

“That’s okay, I’ll just be myself then.”

What was her real self? But that girl knew how to close with a customer. “So, Barry, do we have a deal?”

God yes, we had a deal.

*****

I met Gilda for coffee at a diner. It didn’t take long, and I gave her the cash in an envelope. That seemed kind of sleazy, but the legality of what we were doing was questionable. She had hinted that she knew about different kinds of prostitution provided by that unknown “organization.”  I was instructed to meet Nora in a couple of days. She would be in the basement of a loft building in Chelsea.

“It’s a very nice BDSM club that we can use in off-hours, which is usually in the daytime.”

“You mean it’s a dungeon?”

“It has a dungeon section that can be closed off. The rest of it looks like a sort of comfy lounge. She’ll have drinks for you if you want one.”

When I walked out onto Sixth Avenue I had an urge to go up to 26th Street and look at the place. But something stopped me. Maybe I wanted to be surprised.

I decided not to tell Eddie about it until after it was all over.

****

At 2:00 PM on the appointed day, I walked up to a tall loft building just off Eighth Avenue. A lot of them had been built in that neighborhood earlier in the century as part of the move uptown of The Garment District. There was a locked steel door at one corner of the place, and I knew to use the intercom there. I recognized Nora’s voice. “Yes, who is it?”

“It’s me, you know, Barry Schneider.”

“Oh, course, I’ve been expecting you. I’ll buzz you in.”

When I went down the stairs, the first thing I noticed was Nora herself. She was standing up, and she briefly shook my hand. She seemed to understand that I needed a little time to look her over, and we both faced each other for a few seconds.

That time she was wearing a blue business suit with nylon stockings and black shoes. Her outfit looked rather conventional, except that her skirt was on the tight side. She had her glasses on. That day she did have red lipstick. Somehow she looked better in person than she had in her photos. My impression of her again was not of a dominatrix, but of a young professional woman who might have gotten hired out of college to work at my firm.

There was some kind of emotional thump within me. This girl looks great. I would definitely approach her in a bar, for example – not that I was particularly smooth at that.

“So Barry, sit down and we’ll chat about some things.” She had a sofa for herself on one side of a coffee table and I had a chair on the other side. I guess it made sense that we weren’t side-by-side. Our positions suggested a certain social distance between us.

There were a couple of glasses on the table. One of them looked like a brandy snifter with a dark liquid inside. “I took the liberty of pouring you a glass of cognac. If you can’t stand the stuff, I could get you something else.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“I’m just having seltzer. I’ve got to stay sharp.” That was exactly what Gilda had said about herself. Probably drinking and BDSM were a bad combination.

I looked around the spacious club, which consisted of several rooms with subtle lighting. There were various chairs and sofas scattered around, but there were also what I recognized as spanking benches. One wall had a big wooden door.

I felt it was okay to ask, “What’s in there?”

“That’s the dungeon space. One of the things in there is a big, upright wheel. Some guys like to be tied to it and spun around.”

“Have you ever used it?”

“It’s not my kind of thing, but Gilda showed it to me.” She offered more info. “A person can be upside-down on that, which somehow reminds me of the early Christian martyrs like St. Peter. Not that I believe that any of that is true.”

I speculated that she had a Catholic background because they so emphasized their beloved martyrs. Nora then immediately got into the business at hand. “So, Barry, I understand that you have issues with your girlfriend Louise.” Gilda of course, must have briefed her about me.

“Yeah, I’ve had some problems with her.”

“Come on, Barry, you can trust me. Tell me the details. Gilda already told me some of it, I mean about Louise.”

So my presumption about Gilda had been correct. I convinced myself to trust Nora because I knew she was, in effect, putting on a professional act as part of her job. Any judgments she had about me were not real. Yet I was glad that she had given me a drink to calm my nerves.

“Okay, what’s bothering me is that – well, Louise won’t satisfy all of my needs. In fact, she called them obscene. Thus I often masturbate while imagining some other woman doing what I want. Sometimes I even imagine her doing it to me.”

“You want to be punished for wanting to be punished, in other words. I know that sounds a bit strange.”

“But it’s true.”

“Have you ever seen any spanking porn? There are a number of such magazines published in England. They specialize in all kinds of gender combinations.”

I hadn’t, but I thought that Eddie would be bold enough to pick up some for me. One thing I didn’t mention was that I thought about taking the dominant role with Louise too. Let’s keep it simple.

Nora asked me, “Is there anybody in particular that you think about?”

“You wouldn’t know them. But sometimes it’s a celebrity.

“Which ones?”

“Well, sometimes it’s Elizabeth Montgomery.”

Nora found that amusing. “I bet it’s really her bad girl alter-ego Serena that is most intriguing. They should have both twitched their noses and gotten Darrin restrained over a desk or something. Then they could take turns whacking his butt cheeks with different implements.”

“I have a feeling he’d like that.”

“Guys that uptight are usually very kinky underneath.” She could have been describing me.

I said, “I think that my actions haven’t been good for my relationship with Louise.” That was a bit of a fib; other things were going wrong besides that. But I was starting to get into the role that I had assigned to myself.

“No Barry, they haven’t been good, I’m afraid. That’s something we’re going to take care of right now. That’s going to require me to impose strong discipline on you. Physical punishment is going to be part of the process of course. That’s why you came here.”

She went on, “Gilda told me you feel sorry about masturbating so much. Well, you should feel guilty. You’ve been looking at Louise like she’s merely a sex object, material for your fantasy life.”

That didn’t quite make sense, but I think we both understood that it was merely a pretext. I didn’t tell Nora that my time with Louise was probably almost over.

Nora probably knew what she was going to say next. “But I can discipline you and motivate you to do better in your life. You told Gilda and me how you want it to happen.”

“Yes, I suppose I did.”

She pointed to a nearby armless chair. “I’m going to sit over there. When you finish your drink, come over to me. You can refuse, but I think, since you’re a newbie and kind of nervous, that it would be best to put cuffs on your hands. Otherwise, I might have to hold one of your arms out of the way. That can get distracting.”

I considered what she was proposing, and I could understand it. “Okay, you’re the pro.” That made her smile.

“Then I’m going to spank your bare ass with my bare hand as a warm-up.” She looked at her right hand. “Believe me, I may be female, but I can deliver quite a wallop.”

She sounded so calm, almost impersonal, like a bank teller perhaps. “Remember, you can always ask for that tuna salad if you want it.”

“I never liked that stuff very much.”

“Just reminding you that it’s always available.” She went to her chair and beckoned me over to where she was sitting.

“As you can see, I have a couple of implements here to use on you next.” These were on a side table I hadn’t noticed before. “There’s a nice big wooden brush and also a leather strap. I think these will meet your expectations.”

“Oh yeah, they sure do.

She held up the strap for me to see. It was about twelve inches long and maybe three inches wide. The business end of it was divided into two “tongues.”

“This is called a tawse. It was invented in Scotland, I think, but used elsewhere in Britain. It was used both in schools and also judicially. Male offenders could get up to thirty-six strokes on their bare behinds.”

“Man, that sounds like a lot.”

“It hurts for sure, but unlike a cane, it doesn’t break the skin. That’s one of the reasons it’s one of my preferred implements.”

Gee, a dominatrix who is both polite and thoughtful. Then I guessed that Gilda had probably told her to go easy on me. As I sat there, she got out a towel and put it over her lap.

“What’s with the towel?”

“Well, I’ve had guys ejaculate onto my lap while I spanked them. I knew they couldn’t help it, but it does make quite a mess on my clothes.”

As I stood in front of her, she said, “Barry, you can’t hide it. I see that bulge in your pants.” Just talking to her had given me a hard-on.  “Come closer; I’ll cuff your hands – in front of you, not behind. Then I’ll take your pants down if that is okay with you.”

I automatically apologized for my erection. “I’m sorry, Ms. Nora. I can’t help it either.”

“That’s okay, I understand. A little pleasure mixed in with the pain will make it all more memorable.” That didn’t quite make sense either, but I remembered that this event was a game of sorts, and being consistent probably wasn’t one of the rules.

Having the cuffs on took some getting used to. She must have sensed my unease about them. “Don’t worry, I have the key. I know they feel strange wearing them for the first time.”

Then she undid my trousers and pulled them down. My underpants went next.

My cock was fully erect, with the tip only a couple of feet from her face. I imagined how nice it would be if she started licking and sucking my shaft. Put some lipstick on my dipstick. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen, although I wished she’d at least comment on my tumescent state. Louise had blown me a few times, but she always expressed her distaste for the act.

Nora acted like nothing was unusual about having a stiff-dicked guy standing right by her. She must have seen that many times before. Then she guided me into position over her lap. “Keep your feet on the floor, and put your hands down there too on the other side. That way your behind will be a good, high target.” The tail of my sports coat was lifted out of the way to expose me more fully.

She didn’t comment on the appearance of my exposed buttocks, nor the feel of my stiff cock pressed against her thighs. Instead, she began a low-key chiding of me as she pressed her left hand down on my back.

“Now, Barry, listen to me. The point of this is that you’ve got to stop masturbating about Louise.” Yeah, I’m going to start jerking off about you. “It’s not healthy for the relationship.” I don’t care, it’s not going to last anyway. “Maybe you should cut back on all masturbation. That will give you a better focus on your life.” That made no sense at all.

Then she got into the details of what she was going to do. “I’m going to hand spank you a bit first. Then I’m going to strap you with the tawse. It’s a short one, so I can maneuver it properly. Then maybe I’ll pop you a few times with the back of the brush.”

She asked, “Have you ever been spanked before, by anybody?”

I decided to tell the truth that it had never been done to me.

“Then this will be a new experience for you. I’ll stop periodically to assess how it’s going. I’ll use my expertise to determine when you’ve had enough. Of course, you can always choose that yourself by saying ‘tuna salad’ first. Do you understand and agree to all this?”

“I understand fully.”

“Then prepare to take your discipline.”

I looked back at her to see her expression, but she was looking at my ass, not my face. I saw her raising her right hand up high. She did say that she wasn’t going to start gently.

Nora hit each of my cheeks in turn with two solid smacks. The sound echoed in the room while I said something like “ah” each time.

“So, there are two faint pink handprints on your backside now. I expect you’ll want more, or do you want that tuna salad?

“Ms. Nora, do your worst. I can take it.” Now I just had to live up to my boast.

“Good, you accept what you need. Let’s see how you do with it”

Nora had a fairly slow but steady rhythm, striking each said side of my behind in turn. She said things during the spanking like, “I think God gave us buttocks so our bodies have a well-padded place for correction.” That made me guffaw until the next blow came done on me.

That was the first time I experienced, as I called it, pain in the rear but pleasure in the front. In some unexpected way, I sort of enjoyed the pain. My rear end felt warm and tingly.

I briefly looked back and saw that Nora’s raised spanking hand was becoming red. She noticed my glance and smiled. “You can be sure that your behind is the same color as my hand!”

Nora spent two or three minutes in that phase of the session. She said some things during that period, one of which was, “Barry, you’ve been a very naughty boyfriend, but maybe this will change your behavior.” I would have chuckled at the word naughty but then her hand came down on me again.

“It’s time to switch to the tawse. If students in Scotland could take it, I’m sure you can too. Let’s try it a couple of times.”

The leather thudded into my behind, and I grunted and tried to lift the front part of my body. She pushed down on my back.

“Now, really, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Well, the impact was certainly greater than her hand, but I wasn’t going to complain. When she resumed, she held me around the waist with her left hand. Had I seen any of that porn, I would have known that in lap spankings, the dominant person used their non-spanking hand to keep the submissive one in place.

I involuntarily yelped or moaned with each stroke. After about eight more, Nora stopped for one of those assessments she had mentioned. She gently rubbed both of my butt checks. I gasped, but yet I liked the touch of her hand on my body. There was something both tender and fierce in the way I was being treated.

“Yes, you’re warming up very nicely.”

I dared say, “Heated up is more like it.”

She giggled at that and resumed her swings with the tawse. “Corporal punishment was one of the traditional ways to handle masturbation in both males and females.” One of the pretexts you mean. “That’s what we’re doing today.”

I could imagine a 19th-century governess resorting to it when she caught one of her charges fondling their own genitals. I was about to find out first-hand that corporal punishment could encourage more masturbation. That was sort of the point of hiring a dominatrix in the first place.

Nora stopped every couple of minutes as she had said to see how I was reacting and then started again. My body gyrated on her lap and my cock stayed hard. It was as if I was masturbating on her lap, and she must have noticed it. The tawse came down hard and rhythmically on me as if she was trying to get me to a climax.

Her method worked, and I could feel the pressure building in my body. At the peak, I said something like, “Oh, God, Nora, I’m going to come. I’m going to come right now.” Not too original, but orgasms don’t inspire flowery rhetoric.

She mildly said, “Okay, Barry, do what you have to do.”

I did exactly that, which was to ejaculate all over her towel. I could just see the longest shot hit the floor as I looked down. Nora kept beating me during my orgasm, but she slowed down noticeably and then stopped when I was finished.

While I lay there gasping, she said nothing and I was afraid to look up at her face. When I had calmed down, she quietly said, “All right, Barry, it's corner time. I’ll uncuff you so you can get up and soothe yourself a bit.”

I knew what she meant, and as soon as the cuffs were off, I jumped up and grabbed my own ass. “It feels like it’s on fire back there.”

Nora was well-acquainted with punishment lore. “In the old days, they sometimes had a smooth stone set up where the offender could cool his rear end.”

There was no stone there, of course, so I did the best I could with my hands. After a few moments, Nora said, “Now, go over and face the wall. Put your hands on your head. Bend over a bit so I can examine my handiwork.”

Corner time also added humiliation and a chance for me to ponder my misbehavior. I tried to look back at my blazing hindquarters but I couldn’t see much. I dared ask, “Ms. Nora, what do I look like back there?”

“Oh, it’s good and red for sure. I striped you pretty well. You’re going to have trouble sitting down for a while.” That was no surprise.

After a few minutes, she came up to my left. “I can see, Barry, that I’ve failed in preventing your arousal and resulting masturbation.” Well, you could see it happening throughout the entire time. “I didn’t even get a chance to finish you off with the brush. You should come back here on another day for more motivation.”

It was like a self-generating feedback loop and I’m sure she understood that. I’d be back there every month if I took that seriously.

She was a bit brusque at the end. “It’s nearly time for you to go. Get your pants back up.”

I looked at my watch and saw that I had been there for nearly an hour. We hadn’t used the extra fifteen minutes that Gilda had allotted for this. Oh well, I guess I should bring that up with her. Nora had her own take on the price.

“Since you came during the session, you owe an extra twenty-five, payable right now.”

I felt slightly annoyed at her for being so coolly businesslike. She was just a functionary in the whole process. After my trousers were up, I pulled out the cash and gave it to her.

“You can call Gilda if you need more discipline. Ask for me again if you wish.”

We stood for a moment facing each other. Once the session was over, there was nothing more for us to say or do with each other. It wasn’t like a normal social interaction where some departure chit-chat was expected. Rather, it had been a business transaction, paying for a service in other words, which had come to an end.

“Well, I guess I should go now.”

“Yes, it’s time for that, as I said.”

But I hesitated for a moment and kept looking at her. Then she pushed her glasses to the top of her head. It was the first time I had seen her unobstructed face. She let some poignancy show on her features, which was also something new. I guessed she might be thinking, Don’t go and leave me here alone. Perhaps she had been sexually aroused too.

I could have responded, Sure, honey, let’s go out and get some drinks. And I did think, you’d be an interesting girl to date. But it would have been uncomfortable for both of us, and I’m sure she would have refused. One doesn’t go out with a dominatrix who has just spanked your backside.

Instead, I just turned around and said nothing to her as a goodbye. Then I went up the stairs. The door was not locked from inside, and I pushed it open to enter the street.

Out in the mild afternoon, there was more than a sting in my ass. My mind felt sore too. The sudden contrast between the intimate moments inside and then being out in public was jarring. I had to walk it off, and I went up to Penn Station and moved through it. People were going about their business as the evening rush approached. Probably none of them could imagine a BDSM club a few blocks to the south.

I questioned my whole experiment of hiring a dominatrix in the first place. My finances were $87 lighter, but I had nothing to show for it except a sore behind and a deep feeling of emptiness. I wasn’t sure I’d reveal my secret visit to Eddie because I had nothing to brag about.

During that walk, I speculated that I meant nothing to Nora. I was strictly an impersonal client to her. In essence, it was little different from getting a haircut or my shoes signed.

That last look she had given me could be interpreted as her loneliness. But I had no real evidence of that. I could see her again if I called and paid Gilda, but it would just be a repeat of what had already happened.

I decided to defer the decision about ever hiring a dominatrix again. But I knew it wouldn’t be with Nora. She was a very good dominatrix, but I didn’t want to become emotionally tangled with her.

#####

The prices mentioned here are mostly guesses based on a small amount of research I have done. The hourly price of $50 would be about $281 in today’s money. The $25 fee would be about $140 today.

N.Y.U. is New York University, a private institution in Manhattan. It is not related to the city university system.