I sat down with my old friend (and co-worker, lol) Mistress Dee, a successful dominatrix, about the fantasies she deals with at work, from the most common requests from her clients, to the most obscure and extreme sexual imaginations she’s ever encountered. By Karley Sciortino.
Mistress Dee has been working as a Dominatrix for seven years. She looks almost too perfect for the job—raven hair, snow white skin, an intimidating hourglass—it’s like she was born to abuse people. Dee lives and works primarily in New York, but she gets flown all over the world by men who seek her exceptional skills for domination. She’s the sort of person who, when asked what she got up to over the weekend, will say something like, “Oh, ya know, I flew to Paris to kidnap a businessman, and then I stopped in London on the way home to bury someone alive.” Casual. In her living room, she has a morgue table where most of us would put a couch. But what’s most interesting about Dee, and her role as a Domme, is her ability to bring to life some of the world’s most exceptional and complex fantasies.
Many people think the role of a Dominatrix is simply to dominate and abuse people. They don’t realize that often, sessions are catered to a client’s specific desires. Would you say your job is to execute you clients’ fantasies’ in a believable or pleasurable way?
Mistress Dee: I’d say that’s part of it. There are different kinds of Dommes, just like there are different types of lawyers or chefs or anything else in the world. Some Dommes feel that the service they provide is to execute people’s fantasies verbatim. Personally, I start by saying, “give me your full list of interests”–this is where their fantasies come into play–as well as a list of their hard limits. This gives me an idea of their mental landscape. So in the session, I don’t only address what they want, but also what they might not even know they want–this gives me the power. But I always have to address enough of the client’s interests that he or she continues to want to play the game–because it is a type of game; it’s removed from reality, which is what makes it BDSM, rather than actual physical or psychological abuse. I can’t completely tell the client to fuck off and just do whatever I want, because then he’ll never come back to session with me again, and ultimately one of my fantasies is to make a lot of money, so I need clients.
Has working as a Domme, and being around such extreme sex acts, affected your own fantasies at all?
I’m definitely far less horny than I used to be when I’m going about my normal life. Before I became a Domme I was insane—your average date night sexual predator–but now I have an outlet. Even though I never have, and never will have sex with my clients, there’s still a lot of sexual energy that gets discharged, reabsorbed–I kind of blow my load everyday during my sessions, metaphorically. It doesn’t leave a whole lot left for me in my personal life. And funnily enough, about four years ago I started to have the inklings of a brand new fantasy–a hankering for the vanilla! Having all of these transactional, intense, filthy experience with hundreds of different people left me pining for something stable, cuddly, beautiful, romantic… I started masturbating to things like saying “I love you,” or marriage proposal fantasies. My first reaction was, “Wow, that’s weird, something must be wrong!” But I’d spent enough time having compassion for other people’s bizarre, fucked-up fantasies that I really tried not to condemn myself for it. And actually, it’s pretty funny that the more kinky and fucked-up my job got, the more I pined for something sweet and normal.
What is a very common fantasy that a lot of clients come to you with?
One I’m continuously rolling my eyes at is the fantasy of the unassuming man being seduced by the powerful, sexually confident woman. They want the perfect woman–beautiful, sexy, smart, funny, mysterious–to lure them home and then abuse them. The guys with this fantasy tend to be married, are usually not in the best shape of their lives, and are past their prime, etcetera. I roll my eyes because I personally find the idea of seducing a fat, middle-aged man laughable, but I have to play along.
So would this fantasy be executed at a bar or something?
Some guys want a public element, but others have to worry about being recognized in New York, or whatever city I’m working in, so we can’t do a public session. I have a studio with BDSM equipment and furniture, so we just construct a role-play in there–like, maybe he’s picking me up for a blind date, or he’s delivering flowers, or something like that.
What’s another common fantasy?
‘Forced bi’ is a big one–that’s basically being forced to suck cock, or being turned into a male escort, or a hooker making money for his owner. That is especially common in my clients because I advertise that activity, and I have studs available to work with me. Studs are guys who come in on sessions for free and get their dicks sucked.
Are the studs usually gay?
No, they’re generally straight, bi-curious or heteroflexible. I tend not to work with escorts because I’m greedy and it has a more realistic feel if they’re not professional, but just doing it for kicks. And then on top of the forced bi I’ll add verbal abuse. Like, say a guy has a fantasy of being turned into a sex toy for my profit; I can verbally riff on that during the session. Another big fantasy for subs is to feel owned. Sometimes that manifests literally, for example as a slave owner role-play, like I purchased him from a catalogue of slaves and now I’m trying him out for the first time. I do that a reasonable amount.
You also have “lifestyle slaves” right? So, men whose fantasy is to continually service you, but who don’t necessarily pay to session with you?
Correct. They’re basically unpaid interns and will do anything from drive me to the airport, to take out my air conditioner, to send emails for me. The most devoted one I have has been serving me full time for two years from abroad in the UK. I have him in a chastity belt, and he’s on call 24/7. He sleeps with his phone on for my calls.
Have you ever had a client come to you with a fantasy so unique that it surprised you?
Yes, I have one extremely interesting client who has very obscure, specific fantasies. He books five hour sessions. He’s a professor, and he’s so smart that I have to think really carefully about how to outsmart him. Recently he told me he had a fantasy about me as a Snidely Whiplash character, complete with mustache twirling, a cloak and a hat. (I cut the part about hell as I would rather not share that particular fantasy of his)
That’s certainly specific. Can you describe one of your previous sessions with him?
I took it upon myself to start doing elemental sessions with him, so one to cover each of the four elements. So far I’ve done water, which was a four hour water domination session; fire; air; and next I’m going to do earth, which may include a live burial with him…depending on whether I can find a venue.
OMG that’s terrifying. What are the ways you dominate someone with water?
We were in LA and I did water bondage where I tied him up in a big Jacuzzi. There was drowning, water boarding, and a lot of golden shower stuff. I made him pee in really awkward, humiliating positions, I pissed on him, I made him drink a copious amount of water and then did bathroom torture–there’s all sorts of fluid play you can do.
What about air?
For air I created a fantasy called ghosting, which began as a two-hour shamanic death ritual. I told him that afterward, I was going to walk outside, but that he would be dead to me. I then hired a friend of mine to wear the his clothes, and the client followed me and my friend and another Domme around New York for an hour, watching the other man impersonate him, and none of us acknowledged him. It was like he was invisible. He was so into it. I had put up missing persons ads with his photo along the way, which freaked him out even more.
Do clients ever come to you with a fantasy that you’re also turned on by?
Yup, cuckolding! The historical definition of a cuckold is a man with an adulterous wife. Now, thanks to porn, being a cuckold has come to mean watching another man fuck a woman that you either want, or are in a relationship with, while you’re unable to participate sexually. So in a cuck session I’ll have sex with a guy in front of the client, and while he’s fucking me I might call out something like, “Hey loser, go get us some more lube.”
LOL. Has a client ever requested something that made you uncomfortable?
I’ve had a couple people who wanted to act out the sexual abuse they had experienced as kid. I found it a little disturbing, but if it was helping for them to recover from an experience, then I was all for it. BDSM is actually very therapeutic for me too, so I totally understand and have compassion for someone coming to me for a session that helps him or her heal in some way.
Gosh, it all seems so complicated.
Yeah, I like to take it to the next level, because for me it’s not about sex, so it has to be about something else. For me, it becomes about mind games and a mental, spiritual exploration. Because being a Dominatrix is fucking weird, and intense, and it can be disgusting, and it’s certainly still taboo in the mainstream. So in order not to lose my mind I have to create increasingly cerebral role-plays and fantasies. It’s fascinating to have had a window into so many hundreds of people’s fantasies for the past six years, and a real gift to have been able to act out so many of my own too. Not many people have that freedom.
This was originally written for the culture section of Mac Cosmetics. Main image by Helmut Newton.