growingpains
n 2007, I replied to an ad on Craigslist under adult gigs. The ad stated that a company was in need of one or two ladies to answer phones for an entertainment business in the area, from home.
I had been searching for something to do from home that wasn’t a scam, so I decided to see what it was about. Considering the section it was under, and the fact that I wasn’t a complete idiot, I knew entertainment company most likely translated to escort agency.
Within minutes, I received an email reply, asking if I was available for an interview. Sure, why not. The meeting was set to happen at Hooters. Appropriate enough. The email was signed “Raven”, so I presumed I would be meeting with another woman. Still, I decided to bring my then husband with me, just to be safe.
We scheduled our meeting for a few hours later. I had my husband get a table away from us so I didn’t look like the paranoid person that I was. The woman I was meeting was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life. As eloquent as she was beautiful, highly intelligent, and most assuredly running a high class escort agency.
We talked for about an hour, sizing one another up, both of us making sure that the other wasn’t law enforcement. She explained that she was managing the agency, the owner was a gentleman named Jay. Currently, she was the only person answering the phone and it was exhausting, considering the hours, and she needed help. The business was set up so the phone number could be forwarded to your personal cell phone, so you could answer from home.
She just needed someone with a nice voice, intelligence, access to the internet, and good customer service skills. And of course, the ability to learn the laws concerning escorting. In essence, escorting is not illegal, it’s all in the wording.
I decided I would take the job. The pay wasn’t exceptional, but it wasn’t a difficult job. I would just need to spend a few days at her house, listen to her answer calls, take notes, and decide on a name. I wouldn’t be answering the phone with my real name any more than the ladies that worked for the company used their real names on the website or in person. Any more than Raven was her real name. It would be months before I learned her real name.
This began my life behind the scenes of what it meant to be an escort by choice, how a legitimate escort business was run, and eventually, the world of Professional Domination.
n my first day shadowing Raven, I was surprised to find that everything was rather normal. Quite honestly, I don’t know what I expected, but a rather plain, collegiate type apartment was not what I thought I would find. Raven and her domestic partner, Gabby, lived in what is known in town as the college area, mostly occupied by students of the large university a few blocks away. Kids whose parents can afford to put them up in two bedroom apartments running $750+ per month instead of continuing to live in the dorms after the required first year.
Raven appeared to be college age, but I would find out later that she was in her early 30s. Her partner, Gabby, was not involved in the business at all. She was a veterinary tech and stayed as far away from the business as she could. I could tell from the beginning that it made her very uncomfortable. She wasn’t rude, she just didn’t want to hear about what went on.
I was also surprised at how early the phone started ringing. Raven had me arrive around 0800, in order to start the group text message to all the girls who were employed by the agency. The text was essentially a good morning, hope you are well, do you intend to be available today message. When I started, we had 10 ladies employed, and on average, during the week, approximately five-eight of them would be available all day. By 0900, the phone would start ringing.
These were usually older clients, and I presumed they were retired and their wives were not, yet. So they just had to wait for the wife to head off to work. Other times, it would be a gentleman in their 30s or 40s who worked from home. Same story though, the wife worked outside the home, so they were just waiting for her to leave.
What I failed to ever understand was the lack of discretion at times on the part of our clients.
Most of these men wanted whoever they chose to come to them, to their home, and pull right into the driveway. Granted, unless requested, none of our ladies dressed in the way that most people would imagine. They generally wore a nice dress or pants suit, possibly heels, and were in full hair/makeup but not over done.
Most of our clients were very well off, financially. They lived in neighborhoods with neighbors, the houses were very close together. Neighborhoods where there were a lot of people home throughout the day. Weren’t they worried about Mrs. Jones down the street telling their wife that there was a strange car, and a strange woman, who visited their home once or twice a month, for an hour or so at a time?
I guess it never happened, not that I ever heard. Because these clients were loyal. We had the same gentlemen calling each week, requesting their favorite ladies, like clockwork. Of course, we had new people calling as well. Most of the time, the “one and done” clients wanted to utilize our in-call location, which was in the home of the owner, Jay.
When we were really busy, we would obtain a room at an upscale hotel in town for overflow. If we weren’t quite as busy, but still needed an extra location, we would obtain a room at an extended stay type hotel since it was a bit cheaper. We never used the no-tell motels; they were notorious for vice sting set-ups.
nswering phones wasn’t difficult. We literally answered, “Hello”, with a sexy tone of voice. I won’t disclose the name of the business, but we didn’t say it when we answered. Of course, someone who was new to the business would often ask, “Is this <insert lady’s name here>”, to which we would reply, “No, this is Raven, but I can help you?”
Most newbies thought they were calling the actual lady. This was intentional. The ads that were placed on different websites were written in the first person. However, if you viewed a number of them, you would note that the phone number was the same for every girl that was employed with us.
Some people would become annoyed by the fact they could not speak to the girl directly. They thought they could make a “deal” with them. Some would try to talk to me or to Raven as if we were who they would eventually meet. This is a huge no-no. There was no sexual discussion over the phone.
What happens between two consenting adults is their business.
This is the difference between being arrested for prostitution and not. Never take money from a client’s hand. They put it down, you pick it up. Never discuss performing a sex act for money. The client is paying for your time and companionship, nothing more. This was drilled into the heads of every lady that ever came to work for us, as an escort, exotic dancer, or phone girl. We were a high end agency, we provided educated women for companionship.
It’s a business that has been around for centuries, and the draw is understandable. One lady that worked for us was a 5th grade teacher during the day. She was highly educated, beautiful, and married. Her husband knew what her part-time job was and was 100% okay with it. I asked her once, if she wasn’t concerned about a parent of one of her students inadvertently becoming a client.
She replied, “Not really. What are they going to do, report me to my boss? How would they know? They would have to out themselves as well, and they’ll never do that.”
She was right. The fathers in the community where she worked were tech moguls, doctors, lawyers. There was no way they would risk divorce or worse, just to let everyone know that little Johnny’s teacher was an escort.
FYI, she grossed $5k a month on average, working a few hours a night, three nights per week, and Saturdays. This is at least double what the average teacher makes where I live.
Not all situations are the same. Human trafficking is a horrific nightmare of epic proportions. The women and children involved never see a dime of the money that is made off their terror. But this was not human trafficking. This was by choice. These were women who chose to go into a profession where they made the rules, provide a service that men were searching for, and allow themselves significant financial freedom in the process.
was working for the agency for about six months when a very quiet power play happened. The owner made a room in his home available for our in-call, sometimes. It started being a problem, not being available enough, clients complaining about him being around when calls were happening, so we stopped using it all together. He was stifling our business, his business.
Raven quietly began talks with a gentleman a couple of hours away that we had been co-working parties with. He was a real estate mogul who enjoyed swinging with his wife and adult entertainment. He bought and sold low rent properties, remodeled them, and made a fortune.
On the side, he was putting together parties, similar to swingers parties, where gentlemen he worked with would pay an entrance fee, and Justin (our “friend”) would hire models to attend and pay a lot of attention to his friends. Drinks would flow and the party would last through the night. The problem he was having was getting enough girls to attend. His idea was to have three girls to each man.
That’s how he met Raven. He contacted her via one of our ads on the web and asked if she would be willing to bring every girl that worked with us to the city for one night, for a flat rate, to attend one of his parties. They negotiated, she talked to our girls, and a deal was struck.
Raven and Justin just took over the agency and quietly shooed the original owner out the door. There wasn’t much he could do. There was no LLC or ownership documents. He had not set up the business in any way other than posting ads on the internet. No paperwork at all. Eventually, he tried to start the business again, but no one wanted to work with him. He was kind of a slimy guy.
When Justin came in, he set things up legally. He formed an LLC, had everyone fill out tax forms, set up a bank account, and an exceptional website. We did lose some of our employees. A few girls had no intentions of filing tax returns. They liked their cash business. They were still paid in cash, just now, a record was kept. The company was set up as a modeling agency, on paper. We gained more ladies through advertisement than we lost. Justin was a wheeler and dealer, a real smooth talker. By the time it was all said and done, we had agencies in four cities.
Go big or go home, right?
fter I had been with the company for about a year, Raven called me at home one morning and said she had just gotten a call that she thought maybe I would be interested in. She knew I was not interested in becoming an escort but this was different. This guy was looking for someone to dominate him. She thought with my personality, I could handle it with ease. I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment, but I took it as one anyway.
My interest was piqued. I had some experience in the BDSM lifestyle, personally, though not professionally. I had a very good friend who had been a professional Domme for quite some time, so I knew a bit about what she did. She didn’t have sex with her clients, ever. She didn’t engage in pegging even. Nothing that could even be construed as a sex act. I told Raven I would consider it, but that I wanted to talk to the potential client first, meet with him in public to get a sense of who he was and what he was interested in, and that he would be required to pay for that meeting, regardless of whether I took him on as a client or not.
She agreed. Apparently, when she lived in Japan (she trained as a Geisha for a year) she worked as a Dominatrix briefly, but her girlfriend only agreed to her managing the agency and was not okay with her being involved in any other way. She couldn’t take on this client, and she thought I was the only person involved with the agency that could handle it properly. We agreed on a fee for the meeting, which she agreed was 100% mine, no agency fee required, and she gave me the client’s contact information.
He called himself Blue. And he worked with my husband.
had visited my husband at work only once. It was a temporary position in town while the wind industry was in a lull. I had no concern that my husband find out what I was doing; he was fully aware of my position with the agency and the intent to meet a potential client.
My concern was that Blue would be spooked by the fact that we knew one another outside this business.
He smiled slightly and asked, “Does B know? Is this a secret that we’ll both be keeping?”
I answered honestly, “Yes, he knows, but I would never disclose client information to him. I’m sure he would know many of the clients I talk to daily. We treat our clients the same way an attorney would, so you have no worries of your identity being outed at work, or elsewhere.”
We talked for a bit, discussing what it was that he expected out of this session. He had already discreetly slid a cherry tinted envelope under my purse. I thought the color sweet. He had been told over the phone that I was Mistress Cherry. If I decided that I wanted to offer professional dominatrix services beyond this one client, I would not use the same name on the phones as I would in this line of work. Clients did not talk to the providers over the phone, usually. In this case, they potentially would, but they would never know that I was Mistress Cherry.
Blue was married to someone just as submissive as he, sexually. I quickly explained that sex was not something that would be involved in any session he booked with me. He understood, that wasn’t what he was looking for. He needed someone to be in control. He knew what fantasies were held in the depths of his mind, but he didn’t have the nerve to act on them without being told to do so.
Cross-dressing, being spanked, and being pretty.
As time went on, what came to the surface was his intense need to be accepted as “other”, for lack of a better term. He was a closeted bi-sexual, but had never been honest with himself about that. He just knew that he enjoyed wearing women’s clothing, make-up at times, but he felt he needed to be punished for these feelings. After about six months and maybe six sessions, I released him as a client.
I told him that personally, I could not, even in a professional capacity, punish him for having the feelings that he did. I understood why he felt the way he did, completely. But in my opinion, the only way he would ever feel okay with feeling the way he did, was to come out, at least to himself, and act on those feelings with another person, instead of constantly punishing himself; or paying someone else to do it.
Not very business savvy, but I have a heart.
My favorite client came not long after I met Blue. His name was “Nathaniel”. I named him after one of my favorite characters in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series. He wasn’t my favorite because he was anything special, so to speak. He was my favorite because the tiny evil streak I possess, the one that sees men yelling from the roof tops about how horrible the LGBTQ community is, the ones who scream hellfire and brimstone from the pulpits; it was allowed to come out and play a bit. Because he was one of THEM. On the outside, a “good Christian, family man.” “The gays will be the end of all of us” man.
And he wanted to be made up like a woman, treated like a pansy.
He had no idea what he was getting into.
This man was insidious. From our first meeting in public, I could hardly believe he truly wanted to submit to anyone, much less a woman. As I normally did when meeting a potential client in public, I dressed well. Nice dress, heels, hair well done, a spot of make-up. I dressed like a lady. I was composed and professional. After all, that’s what I was.
I was not at all what he expected. He said as much.
“I expected leather,” he chuckled.
“Really? In this heat?”
“Well, I mean, you’re supposed to be all whips and chains, right? Why not?”
“Look, I’m a professional, just as I’m sure you are. Why would you think I would wear something to give away our true intent, in public? We are in a restaurant. In the middle of town, where anyone can see us. I doubt your wife or pastor would understand finding us here, with me dressed in latex by the way, not leather, and thigh high boots, do you?”
hen meeting with a client in this capacity, I required a bit more information than was ever garnered with escorting clients. The situations could become a bit more intense, I wanted to be sure I wasn’t meeting someone with more of an agenda than just a bit of tie me up, tie me down.
We always required a first and last name and credit card information in order to book an appointment, even if cash was being used to pay for the appointment itself. It was kept on file, just in case. So I had the ability to get quite a bit of information about “Nathaniel” before our meeting.
He was a solid figure in his community. A deacon in his church, a wife and two kids, and openly, very publicly on his social media accounts spoke against gay marriage, among other things. His feeds were full of hate rhetoric, against anything “other”, including women.
And here he was, sitting across from me, demanding an appointment with a woman whose sole job it was to control another person, mostly men.
So yes, I took him on as a client. And I charged him double my usual rate.
Nathaniel enjoyed being flogged, made to wear women’s lingerie, make-up, and the best part, he wanted to be told that while I had him trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, that I would one day, leave him there and bring in a “real man” to see him for who he truly was.
I’ll admit, I enjoyed my sessions with Nathaniel far more than I probably should have. I never once felt bad for anything that occurred, anything he asked for and I happily provided.
He was closeted in his true feelings, all hate and venom on the outside, with at least bi-sexual tendencies eating away at him on the inside.
I didn’t care for him at all as a person. As a queer person myself, an ally, and a woman, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for someone who actively works against those I identify with, and human beings in general.
However, I am a good person at heart, and I did recommend he seek counseling, outside his church, before I released him as a client. I tried hard to explain to him, from one human being to another, that although he may never be able to “come out” so to speak, in his regular life, he could at least stop being such a dick to those who were.
For awhile, after I left the agency, I would check Nathaniel’s social media here and there.
To my knowledge, he never told anyone about his sessions, or his predilections. But the spewing of hate, at least publicly, stopped.
Maybe I helped. Or maybe, he saw that therapist after all.
Power plays of another type continued to play out within the agency and I left two years after the quietly hostile take-over. Working in a hostile environment is not conducive to good mental health, regardless of the business. I left Professional Domination at the same time and for the most part, haven’t looked back.
