An excerpt from KATY IN CONTROL

David and his wife Katy are having dinner with Maria, a beautiful and vivacious Austrian-born beauty, university professor, botanist, author, dancer, and dominatrix.   Maria has described BDSM as a sport, and David, formerly a professional football player, asks her to elaborate.

“I deal with very powerful people, David,” she continued. “They are responsible for the welfare of others, the upholding of centuries-old traditions, the creation of new technologies and communications that will lead our civilization into the future. Most exist in arenas of great pressure, David. They are often threatened, always challenged. They come to me to be tested, to have their masculinity challenged. They must show courage, endurance, and heart. They must yield for a time and accept that they are not really all-knowing nor all-powerful. They recognize their human failings, and they come to me to deal with those misdeeds because they take their responsibilities seriously. They take down their trousers and remove their underpants, and they present their naked flesh to me. I have many implements, you see. Tools that I can take from my toolbox and cut through their reluctance, their willfulness or hang-ups. Some of their misdeeds merit a spanking, and others merit harsher punishments, the paddle or strap, the cane, or even the whip. Sometimes, in order to shed their power and influence they need to restrained, fastened, even chained to become vulnerable. They are not vulnerable in their daily lives, you see, and yet they recognize that vulnerability is basic and essential to human existence. They need someone to bridge the gap, to require them to be naked and fragile, even helpless, because those conditions are a part of life. We try to avoid them, but they are inescapable. So they come to me, and I give them permission to think taboo thoughts, to feel inexcusable physical and emotional sensations. We deal with their misdeeds, and a brief application of pain carefully applied wipes all thought from their mind. It is a small vacation, David. You will see. And then they pull up their trousers and fasten their tie, and they leave my office and go back to their real-life struggles feeling confident. They have confronted adversity in a very intimate manner and overcome it. The episode was private and discreet. A brief interlude, a game. Not really a vacation, but more like a sport, David. More vivid and demanding than golf or tennis, and far more personal. It’s more like mountain climbing, I suppose, or running a marathon. The discomfort is key to the process. Do you understand at all?”

I hesitated to answer a question with a question. “But surely, Mistress, a professional session with you in your office is far different from what you experience in sex play with your husband, or what Katy and I will experience in our bedroom?”

She smiled. “A very good question, David. Yes, of course, but only in degree. If you learn to submit, David, and if Katherine learns to dominate you, you will take away all that I have just described and more. To share the insights and the sensations with a lover is a very different degree, but the escape will be therapeutic, and the awareness, the communication, will be similar and equally rewarding. What I do in the studio is not physically sexual, David. It is mentally sexual, and you will experience that in the bedroom—and far more because you can make the sex physical. That will only add to the intensity of the sensations and of the sharing.”