If Sex Work is a Game, then I’m Playing to Win

It took about two weeks for me to accept my identity as a sex worker. When I first interviewed and even when I arrived on my first day, I considered it like any serious job. In my mind, I emphasized the professional in professional dominatrix.

The first time I started to accept the role of sex worker may have been the first time a client asked for “manual release.” The domina I was observing reluctantly obliged. She arranged an agreement to receive an adequate gratuity for the “extra service.” She had crinkled her nose and pursed her lips as if she were smelling the foulest manure while she rubbed that wrinkly dick with her tiny gloved hands.

No denial after that. I was a sex worker in the sex industry. Many prospective dominas starting out fantasize about the Emma Peel-esque catsuit with the Catwoman whip and smoking hot footwear. I know I looked forward to grinding my patent leather boots into the face of a servile man. Female power… with style.

What more can a woman raised on She-Ra, Xena, and Buffy hope for in a job?

Can you hear that? It’s the sound of a naïve girl-power fantasy shattering. Like all fantasies, reality is far more complex, especially in the case of professional domme work. The power issue: most of that is true but not in a simple mistress/slave dynamic. From the time you lace up your corset to the time you walk out of the session, you are in power. Some lessons I learned to maintain that:

1. No matter what role you take, as the domme or sub in the session, you are always in control. You talk to every client as you would with a play partner in your personal life in the process of negotiation. Tell them your limits (e.g., I only take light to medium corporal punishment, I keep my underwear on, I wear gloves at all times, etc.). If he doesn’t choose you, you’re better off.
2. Above all, keep your mouth, hands, and feet free whenever you can. If you have to be restrained/bound as a submissive, try to tie your own ropes so that you can set up a fail-safe escape knot. Safe words are only going to help you so much. You need to be able to walk out. Your manager can’t save you if she doesn’t know you’re in trouble. Horror story: a client once forcibly rubbed his dick back and forth in a girl’s tied hands.
3. If the client tries things that you didn’t discuss beforehand, call him on it. Depending on what kind of relationship you have, you either negotiate or flat out refuse. Anything that offends you is good reason to walk out.
4. Don’t get conned with new clients. My manager Lucy is the best of the bunch because she gives a thorough briefing before she sends you in. Some managers might send you in blind and leave you with the responsibility of finding out what you need to know. Screw that. Reconnaissance is key. Otherwise, clients will get free extra time, stiff you, give you less tip on extra services like nudity, or like this week’s Featured Client, dry hump you for an hour.
5. Speaking of reconnaissance, be a filter not a sponge for what your fellow dommes say. We are all trying to get paid and though we all ask to hear about individual meets, these bitches won’t share all the good information. I overheard Lucy tell me a client liked secretary scenarios so I was the only one in a button down and skirt for a sub session (others did the clichéd schoolgirl outfit). If I have the upper-hand, I’m keeping it.

What can we learn from all this? Let’s take this week’s session with Dry Humper Dave (named Dick in my tweets). He wrote down (!) the specifics of the session on paper, which included leg scissoring, pinning down, trampling on his back with my feet and non-competitive wrestling. Fine. Suffice it to say, the only wrestling I did was to leg scissor his neck to the mat after he was attempting to dry hump me with my legs up. I tried to distract and intimidate him by talking about the femme fatale Bond girl who killed men with her lethal thighs while trying to demonstrate (yeah, I’m sadistic).

The final straw (or first straw since he began with this) was that his idea of face-sitting was me grinding my pussy and ass on his mouth. Hey, I’m not against face-sitting, especially with my two layers of underwear. My primary limit in session is that if it feels like sex, I’m not doing it. If I want oral sex with clothes on, I’ll get someone outside of the dungeon.

What I did was agree to bring in Giada on his request to show me how it’s done. Oh, if he could’ve seen me snicker. Long story short, I got her to rub her pussy and ass in his face, bury his mouth in her ass like he was bobbing for apples, and get humped with her legs open and every which way for 15 minutes. She got a twenty dollar tip and I got my fee plus tip for doing none of that. You got served, G. I don’t care now whether she gossips about me and gives me the cold shoulder. I’ll always have the image of her underneath grunting Dry Humper Dave with her fake giggles and facial expression hiding disgust.

Before you think of me as Rosemary’s baby, I was laying under the grunting, penis pounding idiot for the other parts of the hour. I earned my keep. With his face near mine as I tried to suppress my smirk, I remembered I was a sex worker. Getting emotional, which meant allowing shame and disgust to cloud my focus, was counter-productive. If I wanted to win (get money, status, eventual independence), I needed to grit my teeth and smile. Oh, and use the power of No like it was an AK-47.

“No, I will not open my legs while you pin me down.” See!

Ma Cherie (@CherieDAmour) is in the market for a boy/girlfriend, kinky sex partner, willing slave, and sugar daddy, though not necessarily in that order. When not working as a dominatrix, Ma Cherie is cruising online dating sites, hitting up fetish parties, and regularly pleasuring herself. Unironically, her favorite song is “Kiss With A Fist.”