I went to an underground sex party for fun. I saw a dominatrix pulling a woman behind her on a dog leash, tying her down, slapping her hard on the ass fifty times (the woman was told to count out loud), and then – while a crowd of onlookers cheered loudly – penetrating her with a strap-on until she wept like a baby. I didn’t cheer; I wasn’t just looking at the dominatrix, but at the audience, too. Holding a lukewarm drink in my hand, as though I’d just wandered in by accident. Afterwards, I approached the dominatrix. She gave me her card and said without looking at me that she did do men, but then her rate was higher.
Now, I’m sitting in some café, where we agreed to meet for the initial ‘exploratory phase,’ as she called it; it’ll cost me a hundred euros. We’ve exchanged messages already, in which she ordered me to do things and I sent her pictures of my ass. That cost me twenty euros per ten messages back and forth. Meaning, five from her. She hasn’t arrived yet and I don’t know what I’m doing here. I have a girlfriend at home and I’m feeling nauseous. It’s busy in the café, but most people are behind their laptops. I’m watching the door, until she comes in. Her eyes are hidden behind her sunglasses.
The last time I saw her, she was dressed in latex. Today, she’s wearing jeans and a purple sweater. Things my girlfriend would wear. She flops down across from me. She looks at me over her glasses and smiles wide. A waitress takes her order, coffee is served. She removes her sunglasses.
‘Why did you want to meet with me?’ She looks at me steadily, stirring her coffee.
‘It seemed interesting. I’m interested in new things. Experiments.’
‘What kinds of new things?’
I scrape my nails across the stubble on my cheek. ‘You know, anything new is objectively interesting.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘I know you’re a bit green, but now you’re just assuming I can guess what it is you want. I can’t.’
I’m still nauseous and suppress the urge to slam my fists against the wobbly table. Or my chest.
‘I need to know what moves you a bit, in order for me to feel safe,’ she says.
I take a sip of cold coffee. I’m thinking: If I’m going for a massage, I don’t want to explain exactly how I want to be touched either, the masseuse is the professional, they know. And even if I tell them ‘I think you have to rub my lower back hard with your elbows,’ it would be bullshit. How should I know what’s wrong with me? Whenever I’m at the doctor’s describing my symptoms, I also always feel like a fraud, even though I’m not telling him anything that’s not true. Still, it’s like I’m trying to get something out of him. But what? Something final. Something unquestionable. Like the words that escape me whenever my girlfriend has one of her panic attacks and I wrap myself around her tiny body like a hand around a baby bird. I’m thinking of the woman at the party and how the dominatrix, after fucking her, soothingly cradled her in her arms while all the water in the world ran down her cheeks. They sat there like that for at least fifteen minutes.
‘What was it that drew you about my performance with Lucy, exactly?’ she asks, as if my eyes are telling her what I’m thinking. I look down at my hands.
‘You don’t have to be sure, you can search your mind.’ She flashes me a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. I look around at the other customers in the café, the music is so loud.
‘That she was so powerless. At your mercy.’
‘Yeah? Is that what you want, too?’ She crosses her legs under the table, grazing my knee with the tip of her shoe.
‘I find the idea of helplessness interesting,’ I say. She snaps her fingers and I look her in the eye. Her expression is degrading. My dick is pressing up against the buttons of my pants.
‘Does being helpless turn you on?’
I nod, unable to turn away from her jeering eyes.
‘Would you like to be tied up, too, like Lucy was?’
‘Maybe, yes.’
‘And spanking? Do you want me to hurt you?’
‘Yes.’
‘To fuck you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yeah? What else do you want?’
‘You can spit in my face.’
‘Yeah? You like being humiliated?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want me to make fun of you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How? Do you want me to make you feel stupid? Or fat, or ugly? Useless?’
‘Not fat or ugly … But the other things.’
‘What things?’
‘Stupid. Insignificant. Worthless.’
She nods and stays silent for a long time. Long enough for my dick to shrivel back up. ‘All right,’ she says, ‘I can work with that.’
She gets up. I don’t move a muscle as she leaves. I look down at my hands. She’s gone. A waiter comes by for the two empty cups and asks if I want anything else. I shake my head; the waiter has already gone to another table.
Something wells up inside of me, it creates a lump in my throat and I feel like I need to puke. I let out a high-pitched sob that’s clearly audible over the music. I start shaking uncontrollably. I’m crying terribly inside the café. I cover my face with my hands, apologise to the people I can’t see from behind them. It does feel quite like puking, because I can’t seem to stop.
Once I’ve got myself back under control I use my sweater to wipe my face dry. Reluctantly, I look around, so that I can assure everyone, with an apologetic but determined look on my face, that I’m not crazy. Nobody is looking at me, they’re all facing their laptop or the other person at their table. Their fingers are tapping away. It looks like no one saw any of it.